"I can't."
"Of course you can't! And don't ask me to consider poor old Roddy Vickerstown, because it's a sheer waste of time. He's not above lending the light of his countenance to hopeless outsiders, who feed and wine him in the style to which he's accustomed, but he does draw the line somewhere! He's tottering round the town saying that the fellah can't be a gentleman, because strangling is the lowest form of murder, and no one with any breeding at all would dream of killing a man in somebody else's house. Damn' bad form, my boy!"
Jim grinned. "All right, wash him out too! Where do you go from there?"
"I think the first murder was premeditated, and the second wasn't. And, working from that point, it looks as if the same man did both. Quite obviously, things were desperate, and Mrs. Haddington had to be silenced. Supposing she knew who committed the first murder?"
"Then why didn't she clear herself by telling the police what she knew?"
"That's just the point: if she'd been in danger of taking the rap, she undoubtedly would have told the police. But you weren't privileged to know the lady! She was one of the most coldblooded, calculating females I've encountered. My guess - and I admit it is only a guess - is that she was planning the biggest blackmailing coup of her career, and that was why she had to be eliminated."
"Yes, but wait a bit, Timothy! What was to stop the guilty party paying up until all the smoke had cleared away, and then disposing of Mrs. Haddington, when the police were not haunting the house?"
"The fact that Mrs. Haddington was herself a suspect!" said Timothy instantly. "He dared not chance it. If she got charged with the murder, she'd spill the beans at once: she'd have to!"
"I expect there's a flaw in it somewhere," said Jim, "but I'm bound to say it's quite ingenious, if you can clear the first hurdle. Would she really cash in on the death of an old friend?"
"I should say that the only thing she wouldn't cash in on would be Cynthia," replied Timothy. "She was a remarkably repellent piece of work, but I'll hand her this!