“I don’t know, dear; what do you think, Professor?”
“I think in so many directions, that I’m sure none of them is right. Awful things suggest themselves to my mind, but I can’t believe them, and I dismiss them, half thought out.”
“That’s the way with me,” sighed Braye. “It looks now as if there must be some one who gets in from outside the house, and who is responsible for all the inexplicable happenings. Of course, that would point to Stebbins, we must all admit that.”
The servants had left the hall, so Braye permitted himself this freedom of speech.
“I don’t say it’s Stebbins,” the Professor mused, “but I do think it’s some one from outside. There may be a village inhabitant who is possessed of a homicidal mania, that’s the theory that seems to me the only one possible. And we must assume, now, that there is a secret way to get in and out of the house.”
“If so, that clever detective ought to find it,” argued Braye.
“Perhaps he will,” said Hardwick, “also, perhaps he has. He doesn’t tell all he knows. Now, this is certain. All here present are, I am thankful to say, free from any breath of suspicion. For last night, you, Braye, and the detective and I all slept with our doors open, and none of us could have left our rooms without being observed by the others. The same is true of the ladies, and of course, Mrs. Landon can vouch for her husband.”
“Don’t talk that way,” said Norma, with a shudder. “You know none of us could be suspected.”
“Not by ourselves,” agreed the Professor; “nor by each other, of course. But by an outsider, or by the servants, or by the detectives,—it is indeed a good thing to have matters arranged as they are. I feel a decided satisfaction in knowing that no unjust suspicion can attach itself to any one of our party.”
“That’s so,” and Braye nodded. “But it doesn’t get us any nearer to the real criminal. I incline to the Professor’s idea of a man of homicidal mania, in the village. They say, that’s a real disease, and that such people are diabolically clever and cunning in carrying out their criminal impulses.”