Two detectives were there, but one, Hallen by name, said almost nothing, seeming content to listen, while his colleague conducted the questioning of the household.
Burdon, the talkative one, was a quick-thinking, clear-headed chap, decided of manner and short of speech.
“Now, look here,” he was saying, “this was an inside job, of course. Might have been one of the servants, or might have been any of you folks. How many of you are ready to help me in my investigations by telling all you know?”
“I thought we had to do that, whether we’re ready to or not,” spoke up Genevieve, who was not at all abashed by the presence of the authorities. “Of course, we’ll all tell all we know—we want to find the murderer just as much as you do.”
Keefe looked at her with a slight frown of reproof, but said nothing. The others paid no attention to the girl’s rather forward speech.
In fact, everybody seemed dazed and dumb. The thing was so sudden and so awful—the possibilities so many and so terrible—that each was aghast at the situation.
The three Wheelers said nothing. Now and then they looked at one another, but quickly looked away, and preserved their unbroken silence.
Jeffrey Allen became the spokesman for them. It seemed inevitable—for some one must answer the first leading questions; and though Curtis Keefe and Miss Lane were in Appleby’s employ, the detective seemed more concerned with the Wheeler family.
“Bad blood, wasn’t there, between Mr. Appleby and Mr. Wheeler?” Burdon inquired.
“They had not been friends for years,” Allen replied, straightforwardly, for he felt sure there was nothing to be gained by misrepresentation.