“That’s for you and Mr. Landon to decide,” returned Tracy, gently. “I’m not dictating, not even advising, but I have strong opinions on the subject. What say, Braye?”
“I quite agree with you, Tracy. But, I’m sure if Mrs. Landon prefers to go down to New York and stay at her mother’s no one could possibly object.”
“But I don’t!” Milly surprised them all by saying, “if you put it that way,—if it’s cowardly to go away, I don’t want to go. I want to stay, if Wynne does, and if Eve and Norma stay.”
“That’s my brave girl,” and Landon smiled at his wife; “I’ll guarantee that Milly won’t make any trouble, either. Once she’s awake to a duty, she’s bold as a lion. Now, see here, if Crawford stirs up suspicion of any of us, we’ll have to deal with him pretty roughly, I fear. He’s a pig-headed sort, and he will move heaven and earth to gain his point. Moreover, we can’t expect him to subscribe to spook theories, any more than those men Rudolph talked to in New York. One has to go through some such experiences as we have, to believe in them. You, Professor, would never have been convinced by hearsay evidence, would you?”
“No, sir, I would not! It took these otherwise inexplicable happenings to prove to me that there is but one way to look. Even a coroner can’t produce a human criminal who could kill those two people the way they were killed, and who could get into and out of this house and take a human body with him! The thing is preposterous!”
“You know the doors and windows were all locked?” asked Braye, thoughtfully.
“I looked after them, myself,” said Landon. “I always do. After the last one goes upstairs for the night, I invariably look after the locking up. And the house, properly locked, is impregnable. The servants’ quarters are shut off and locked; there is absolutely no way of getting in from outside.”
“Going back to Jennings’ theory,” mused Braye, “could we suspect old Thorpe?”
“Not for a minute,” declared Landon. “And, too, he wasn’t in the hall when they died. No, I’d trust Thorpe as far as I would any of ourselves. But, there’s Stebbins. I’ve never felt sure that he’s entirely trustworthy.”
“Even so,” said Braye, “he wasn’t here when—when they died.”