“It would seem a fair conclusion,” answered Trafford; “and yet I have evidence that satisfies me that they did not murder him and do not know who did. I don’t mean to say that they wouldn’t have done it finally; but they didn’t this time, and are not only puzzled, but much disturbed, over the mystery of the murder. We have gone so far on this matter that I can tell you in a word why they are disturbed. Whoever murdered him took the papers, and they are alarmed as to where they’ll turn up next.”
Mrs. Parlin had by the act of telling her story recovered her self-control and power to think, and saw as clearly as Trafford the meaning of this uncertainty.
“But who,” she asked, “could have done it, if they did not?”
“Some one who knew he had the papers. Some one who knew something of their value, and some one who knows the safety there is in boldness, and had the nerve to carry through an affair that might break down at any point. I knew long since that some one was with Mr. Wing in the evening after you left him, and that the visitor stayed very late. I also know that, contrary to what was generally supposed, this room was visited after the murder. Some one passed over his dead body, entered the room, and took the papers. The question is, who was bold enough to commit the theft under such conditions?”
The picture that Trafford drew of the murder and the theft stirred Mrs. Parlin, already wrought upon by the interview, to a state of nervous excitement that was most distressing. Too late, the detective realised that in such a state she was scarcely a safe custodian for the secret he had given into her keeping. She walked the room, wringing her hands and asking herself:
“Why didn’t I burn them; why didn’t I burn them? I might at least have saved Theodore! I am his murderer.”
It was late when Trafford had quieted her so that he dared trust her even with Mary Mullin. Even this he did not do, without first giving her a stern warning as to the necessity of self-restraint.
“We’re on the last stretch now,” he said. “What’s done must be done quickly and silently. These men haven’t committed murder yet, but they wouldn’t hesitate to, if they were once convinced that safety lay in that direction. In forty-eight hours they’ll see that it’s safer for this murder to remain a mystery, and then it’ll be dangerous to move—it may mean death. Can you keep still on this subject two days?”
“I kept still for eight years while I saw my husband crushed,” she said reproachfully.
As he was turning away, oppressed with the thought that he was pitted against men who would hesitate at nothing and who, as soon as a conference was had, must see that their interests lay in thwarting his efforts, she caught him by the coat and drew him towards her.