“But if there’s any such, they or he must be in the house now,” Bill said, quietly. “Let’s go and see.”
The two started from the room and Landon, after a glance at Doctor Varian, followed them.
“I don’t see,” Landon said to Potter as they went to the kitchen, “why you folks in authority always seem to think it necessary to take an antagonistic attitude toward the people who are representing the dead man! You act toward Doctor Varian as if you more than half suspected he had a hand in the crime himself!”
“Not that, my boy,” and Potter looked at him gravely; “but that doctor brother knows more than he’s telling.”
“That’s not so! I know. I came up here to the house with him. I was with him when he found his brother’s body——”
“Oh, you were! Why didn’t you say so?”
“You didn’t ask me. No, I don’t know anything more. I’ve nothing to tell that can throw any possible light, but I do know that Doctor Varian had no hand in it and knows no more about it than I do.”
“Good land, I don’t mean that he killed his brother,—I know better than that. But he wasn’t frank about the relations between the girl and her father. Do you know that they were all right? Friendly, I mean?”
“So far as I know, they were. But I never met them until today. I can only say that they acted like any normal, usual father and daughter.”
“Oh, well, it doesn’t matter. It’ll all come out,—that sort of thing. Now to find the girl.”