“No, he wasn’t. I can’t see any way he could have arranged things unless he poisoned the cake——”
“Rubbish, Wynne!” cried Eve, “you know we all ate that cake. Do be rational.”
“But Mr. Bruce was poisoned, Eve, we can’t get away from that.”
“Of course he was,” broke in Hardwick, “and doubtless Vernie was too, but it was not done by human agency.”
“Well, there we go, reasoning round in a circle,” murmured Norma; “I think our talk is useless, when we surmise and speculate about it all. Let us decide on our immediate plans. Shall you send Mr. Bruce’s body to Chicago, and stay here yourself, Rudolph?”
“Yes, as I look at it now. I can’t see anything else to do.”
Nor was there anything else to do.
For Doctor Crawford persisted in treating the case as a criminal one, and requested that all concerned remain at Black Aspens for the present, with a hint that unless they did so, the request might become a command.
“Then you think the two people were murdered?” asked Landon of the county physician.
“I don’t say that, for sure; but when a man drops dead, and a trace of poison is found in his stomach, it looks mighty like an intention of death on some one’s part,—maybe the man himself. There’s a show of suicide, you know.”