“Mr. Bartlett! There's no use disguising the fact that his family and ours aren't on friendly terms. I think he did a grave injustice to my brother in a business way, and I'll never forgive him for it. I don't want to see Viola marry him—that is I didn't. I hardly believe, now, after he has been arrested, that she will. But there is no doubt she cares for him, and would do anything to prove that this charge was groundless.”
“Well, yes, I suppose that's natural,” assented the detective. “I'd be glad, myself, to believe that Harry Bartlett had nothing to do with the death of Mr. Carwell.”
“But you believe he did have, don't you?”
“I haven't yet made up my mind,” was the cautious answer. “The golf course mystery, I don't mind admitting, is one of the most puzzling I've ever run across. It won't do to make up one's mind at once.”
“But my brother either committed suicide, or else he was deliberately poisoned!” insisted Miss Carwell. “And those of us who knew him feel sure he would never take his own life. He must have been killed, and if Harry Bartlett didn't do it who did?”
“I don't know,” frankly replied the colonel. “That's what I'm going to try to find out. So Miss Viola feels much sympathy for him, does she?”
“Yes. And she wants to go to see him at the jail. Of course I know they don't exactly call it a jail, but that's what I call it!”
Miss Carwell was nothing if not determined in her language.
“Would you let her go if you were I—go to see him?” she asked.
“I don't see how you are going to prevent it,” replied the colonel. “Miss Viola is of legal age, and she seems to have a will of her own. But I hardly believe that she will see Mr. Bartlett.”