“Because,” said Stone, not resenting the question, “because I can’t place any dependence on the truth of the family’s statements. For three respectable, God-fearing citizens, they are most astonishingly willing, even eager, to perjure themselves. Of course, I know they do it for one another’s sake. They have a strange conscience that allows them to lie outright for the sake of a loved one. And, it may be, commit murder for the sake of a loved one! But all this I shall straighten out when I get further along. The case is so widespread, so full of ramifications and possible side issues, I have to go carefully at first, and not get entangled in false clues.”
“Got any clue, sir? Any real ones?”
“Meaning dropped handkerchiefs and broken cuff-links?” Stone chaffed him. “Well, there’s the pistol. That’s a material clue. But, no, I can’t produce anything else—at present. Well, Terence, what luck?”
Fibsy, who had slipped from the room at the very beginning of this interview, now returned.
“It’s puzzlin’—that’s what it is, puzzlin’,” he declared, throwing himself astride of a chair. “I’ve raked that old garage fore and aft, but I can’t track down the startings of that fire. You see, the place is stucco and all that, and besides the discipline of this whole layout is along the lines of p’ison neatness! Everybody that works at Sycamore Ridge has to be a very old maid for keeping things clean! So, there’s no chance for accumulated rubbish or old rags or spontaneous combustion or anything of the sort. Nextly, none of the three men who have any call to go into the garage ever smoke in there. That’s a Mede and Persian law. Gee, Mr. Wheeler is some efficient boss! Well, anyway, after the fire, though they tried every way to find out what started it, they couldn’t find a thing! There was no explanation but a brand dropped from the skies, or a stroke of lightning! And there was no storm on. It wouldn’t all be so sure, but the morning after, it seems, Mr. Allen and Mr. Keefe were doin’ some sleuthin’ on their own, and they couldn’t find out how the fire started. So, they put it up to the garage men, and they hunted, too. It seems nothing was burnt but some things in Mr. Appleby’s car, which, of course, lets out his chauffeur, who had no call to burn up his own duds. And a coat of his was burned and also a coat of Mr. Keefe’s.”
“What were those coats doing in an unused car?” asked Stone.
“Oh, they were extra motor coats, or raincoats, or something like that, and they always staid in the car.”
“Where, in the car?”
“I asked that,” Fibsy returned, “and they were hanging on the coat-rail. I thought there might have been matches in the pockets, but they say no. There never had been matches in those coat pockets, nor any matches in the Appleby car, for that matter.”
“Well, the fire is pretty well mixed up in the murder,” declared Stone. “Now it’s up to us to find out how.”