"It is too unbelievable!"
"No; it is diabolically clever, but quite understandable. Julie and Tibbetts are the same. This confidential woman looked after her mistress' safety on both sides. She remained when Vicky Van disappeared. She looked after everything, took care of details, attended to tradesmen and all such matters, and when ready followed Mrs. Schuyler into the other house, or went from here to her rooms a few blocks away and later came from them. When there were to be parties, Julie left the Schuyler house early, came here and made preparations, and then as late as ten or eleven o'clock maybe, Mrs. Schuyler came in from her home, when her own household thought her abed and asleep. She could go back in the early morning hours, with no one the wiser. Or, if she chose and she did when her husband was out of town, she could pretend she had gone away for a visit and stay here for days at a time."
I began to see. Truly the wall's tongue had spoken. If this awful theory of Stone's were true, it could only be managed in this way. I remembered how long and how often Vicky Van was absent from her home. I remembered that sometimes she was late in arriving at her own parties, although she always came down from upstairs in her party regalia.
"How did you come to suspect Tibbetts?" I asked, suddenly.
"Her teeth," said Fibsy. "I saw that Tibbetts had false teeth, anyway, an' I says, why can't Julie's gold teeth be false, too? And they are. They're in the safe!"
What marvelous precautions they had taken! To think of having a set of teeth for the maid Julie that should appear so different from those of Tibbetts! Surely this thing was the result of long and careful planning.
"Her glasses, too," went on Fibsy. "You see, they made her different from Tibbetts in appearance. That was all the disguise Tibbs had, the gold teeth, the big rimmed specs and the brown scratch—wig, you know. But it was enough. Nobody notices a servant closely, and these things altered her looks sufficient. Miss Van Allen, now, she had a wig an' a lot of colorin' matter an' her giddy clothes. Nothin' left to reckernize but her eyes, an' they were so darkened by the long dark lashes and brows that she fixed up that it made her eyes seem darker. I got all this from the pitchers the artist lady made. You see, she caught the color likeness but not the actual features. So I sized up the resemblance of the real women. Oh, Mr. Stone, what are we going to do?"
"Our duty, Terence."
Then I put forth my plea, that I might be allowed to go and see Ruth first; that I might prepare her for the disclosures they would make, the discoveries they would announce.
But Stone denied me. He said they would do or say nothing that would unnecessarily hurt her feelings, but they must accompany me. Indeed, he implied, that it might be as well for me not to go.