“It’s necess’ry, sir.” The red-head nodded emphatically. “These sidelights often point the way to the great and shinin’ truth! For, don’t you see, Mr. Keefe, being so gone on Miss Maida, naturally doesn’t want her or her people suspected of this crime—even if one of them is guilty. So he fixes up a cock-and-bull story about a bugler man—on the south veranda. This man, he argues, did the shooting. He gets Rachel—he must have some hold on her, bribery wouldn’t be enough—and he fair crams the bugler yarn down her throat, and orders her to recite it as Gospel truth.”
“Then she gets scared and runs away.”
“Exactly. You see it that way, don’t you, Mr. Stone?”
The earnest little face looked up to the master. Terence McGuire was developing a wonderful gift for psychological detective work, and sometimes he let his imagination run away with him. In such cases Stone tripped him up and turned him back to the right track. Both had an inkling that the day might eventually come when Stone would retire and McGuire would reign in his stead. But this was, as yet, merely a dream, and at present they worked together in unison and harmony.
“Yes, Fibsy—at least, I see it may have been that way. But it’s a big order to put on—to Mr. Keefe.”
“I know, but he’s a big man. I mean a man of big notions and projects. Anybody can see that. Now, he’s awful anxious Miss Wheeler and Mr. Wheeler shall be cleared of all s’picion—even if he thinks one of ’em is guilty. He doesn’t consider Mrs. Wheeler—I guess nobody does now.”
“Probably not. Go on.”
“Well, so Keefie, he thinks if he can get this bugler person guaranteed, by a reliable and responsible witness—which, of course, Rachel would seem to be—then, Mr. Keefe thinks, he’s got the Wheelers cleared. Now, Rachel, getting cold feet about it all, goes back on Keefe—oh, I could see it in his face!”
“Yes, he looked decidedly annoyed at Rachel’s failure of a convincing performance.”
“He did so! Now, Mr. Stone, even if he bolsters up Rachel’s story or gets her to tell it more convincingly—we know, you and I, that it isn’t true. There wasn’t any man on the south veranda.”