“He stole me,” said Zizi; “you see I had my eye on him, ’cause of his oiled door. Then when he came, I thought he was only going to scare me, but he stuffed that old chloroform in my mouth so quick, I couldn’t even yell out. If I hadn’t had some experience in swimming pools and movie thrillers, I’d been down at the bottom of that horrid old lake this minute!”
“But I can’t understand,” and Eve looked puzzled; “why would Mr. Tracy kill those people, and how did he do it? Mr. Wise, you’re crazy! It’s an impossible theory!”
Others had gathered in the hall, now, and Pennington Wise told them all of his recent advices from Chicago, that proved the supposed clergyman a fraud and a villain.
Milly showed the greatest relief. “Oh,” she cried, “I’m glad you’ve found out who it was, anyway! But it doesn’t seem as if Mr. Tracy could be a bad man—are you sure, Mr. Wise?”
“Yes, Mrs. Landon, there is no doubt at all. Now, let us reconstruct the scene of those two deaths. Where was Mr. Tracy sitting?”
“Right here, where I am now,” said Norma, thinking back. “Vernie was over there, near the front door. Mr. Bruce was across the hall by Professor Hardwick, and Eve was in the middle of the room by the tea-table.”
“Will you be so kind, Miss Carnforth, as to think very carefully,” said Wise, “and see if you recollect Mr. Tracy’s presence near you as you were fixing the various cups of tea. Did he have the slightest opportunity to add anything to the cup that was afterward handed to Mr. Bruce?”
Excited, almost hysterical, Eve obeyed the detective’s command, and said, after a moment’s thought, “Yes, he did. I remember he passed near me, and Vernie stood at my side also. They had a bit of good-natured banter as to which should take the cup I had just poured out, and Vernie won, and she laughingly carried it to Mr. Bruce. I remember it distinctly.”
“Then, doubtless, at that moment, Tracy dropped the small amount of poison necessary in the cup, sure that it would be given to Mr. Bruce. Had Vernie given it to any one else, he would have intercepted it. He is a man of suave manners, you know.”
“Yes,” said Norma, “particularly so, and very graceful about any social matters. He always assisted in passing the tea things.”