“Then,” Fibsy summed up, “Mr. Wheeler and Maida don’t suspect each other; one did it, and both know which one.”
“Well put. Now, which is which?”
“More likely the girl did the shooting. She’s awful impulsive, awful high strung and awful fond of her father. Say the old Appleby gentleman was beratin’ and oratin’ and iratin,’ against Friend Wheeler, and say he went a leetle too far for Miss Maida to stand, and say she had that new secret, or whatever it is that’s eatin’ her—well, it wouldn’t surprise me overly, if she up and shot the varmint.”
“Having held the pistol in readiness?”
“Not nec’ess’rily. She coulda sprung across the room, lifted the weapon from its customed place in the drawer, and fired, all in a fleetin’ instant o’ time. And she’s the girl to do it! That Maida, now, she could do anything! And she loves the old man enough to do anything. Touch and go—that’s what she is! Especially go!”
“Well, all right. Yet, maybe it was the other way. Maybe, Wheeler, at the end of his patience, and knowing the ‘secret,’ whatever it may be, flung away discretion and grabbed up his own pistol and fired.”
“Coulda been, F. Stone. Coulda been—easily. But—I lean to the Maida theory. Maida for mine, first, last, and all the time.”
“For an admirer of hers, and you’re not by yourself in that, you seem cheerfully willing to subscribe to her guilt.”
“Well, I ain’t! But I do want to get the truth as to the three Wheelers. And once I get it fastened on the lovely Maida, I’ll set to work to get it off again. But, I’ll know where I’m at.”
“And suppose we fasten it on the lovely Daniel?”