“Well, through that gate is the only way to get to this house.”
“But all the picnic party were waiting, in full view of that gate, and in full view of the house. Yet somebody——”
“You needn’t say somebody got in,—for nobody could do that.”
“I don’t say it. But I’m looking out for some such person. If not, we must conclude——”
“What, sir?”
“That Miss Varian shot her father, and then,—in some yet undiscovered place, killed herself, or still alive,—is in hiding.”
“Miss Betty kill her father!” exclaimed Hannah, the cook, speaking to the sheriff for the first time. “No, she never did that!”
“Yet there was ill feeling between them,” Potter returned, quickly.
“That there was not! A more loving father and child I never met up with! Bless her pretty face! To dare accuse darlin’ Miss Betty of such a thing! I say, now, Mister Man, you better be careful how you say such lies around here! You know you’ve nothin’ to go on, but your own black thoughts! You know you don’t know who killed the master, and you’re too dumb to find out, and so you pick on that poor dear angel child, who ain’t here to speak up for herself!”
“Where is she, then? Where’s Miss Betty?”