“And now I think your prisoner is quite secure, even though you should sleep on your post, officer,” said the doctor, with grim satisfaction, as he walked from the spot.
Malcolm Montrose smiled strangely as he followed.
In the hall below they were met by a servant, who announced the arrival of Mr. Carter, the family solicitor, who had asked to see Mr. Montrose, and who had been shown to the library, where he now waited.
Malcolm immediately went thither, and when seated at the writing-table with the attorney, related to him all the details of the household tragedy, and the arrest of Eudora Leaton upon the awful charge of poisoning the whole family.
Even the clear-headed, case-hardened old lawyer was shocked and stupified by the dreadful story. When Malcolm had finished, and the lawyer had recovered his presence of mind, they discussed the affair as calmly as circumstances would permit. The lawyer insisted that the evidence against the accused girl was quite convicting, and that there was not in the whole wide range of human possibility a single chance of her being acquitted; while Malcolm, in agonized earnestness, persisted in upholding her perfect innocence.
“But if she did not do it, who did it?” pertinently inquired the lawyer.
“Aye, WHO indeed! Conjecture is at a full stand!” answered Malcolm, wiping the drops forced out by mental anguish from his brow.
“Is no one else amenable to suspicion?”
“Not one!”
“Had the late family deeply offended any person, or casually injured any one, or made any enemy?”