“Yes,” agreed Lockwood, with what seemed to Morton suspicious eagerness. Why should the secretary be so obviously pleased to leave the study—though, to be sure, it was a grewsome place just now.
“Wait a minute,” Morton said, “how about robbery? Has anything been missed?”
Lockwood looked surprised.
“I never thought to look,” he said; “assuming suicide, of course robbery didn’t occur to me.” He looked round the room. “Nothing seems to be missing.”
“Stay on guard, Higby,” the detective said to a policeman, and then asked the secretary where he could interview the housekeeper and the servants.
Lockwood took Morton to the living-room, and there they found Mrs. Bates as well as the two Peytons.
Though her eyes showed traces of tears, Emily Bates was composed and met the detective with an appealing face.
“Do find the murderer!” she cried; “I don’t care how much that room was locked up, I know John Waring never killed himself! Why would he do it? Did ever a man have so much to live for? He couldn’t have taken his life!”
“I’m inclined to agree with you, Mrs. Bates,” Morton told her, “yet you must see the difficulties in the way of a murder theory. I’m told the room was inaccessible. Is not that right, Mrs. Peyton?”
Flustered at the sudden question the housekeeper wrung her hands and burst into tears. “Oh, don’t ask me,” she wailed, “I don’t know anything about it!”