"It was clever," agreed Stone. "I'm sure, myself, that the absence of that small carving knife means something, but I can't fit it in yet."
We went up to the dining-room to look again at the carving fork, still in its place on the sideboard. I was always thrilled at a return to this room—always reminded of the awful tableau I had seen there.
The long, slender fork lay in its place. Though it had been repeatedly examined and puzzled over, it had been carefully replaced.
"But I can't see," I offered, "why a carving-knife should figure in the matter at all when the crime was committed with the little boning-knife."
"That's why the missing carving-knife ought to be a clue," said Stone, "because its connection with the case is inexplicable. Now, where is that knife? Fibsy, where is it?"
Fleming Stone's frequent appeals to the boy were often in a half-bantering tone, and yet, rather often, Terence returned an opinion or a bit of conjecture that turned Stone's cogitations in a fresh direction.
"You see, sir," he said, this time, "that knife is in this house. It's gotter be. That lady left the house in a mighty hurry but all the same she didn't go out a brandishin' of a carvin'-knife! Nor did she take it along an drop it in the street or an ash can for it'd been found. So, she siccreted it summer, an' it's still in the house—unless—yes, unless she has taken it away since. You know, Mr. Stone, the Van Allen has been in this house more times than you'd think for. Yes, sir, she has."
"How do you know?"
"Lots o' ways. Frinst' on Sat'day, I noticed a clean squarish place in the dust on a table in the lady's bedroom, an' it's where a book was. That book disappeared durin' Friday night. I don't remember seein' the book, I didn't notice it, to know what book it was, but the clean place in the dust couldn't get there no other way. Well, all is, it shows Miss Vick comes an' goes pretty much as she likes—or did till you'n me camped out here."
"Then you think she left the knife here that night, and has since returned and taken it away?"