“Now, draw it mild, Bell! It was you that were taking her part only last night.”
“How dare you say that, you aggravating man! Did I not say at once that it was she that killed her husband, and now are not my words proved true? Has not her guilty conscience driven her to try and drown herself? Why, it’s as plain as the nose on your face.”
“Don’t be so hasty; it proves nothing of the sort. You will admit that if she is the criminal, she must be a most daring and cold-blooded one. Now, daring criminals, particularly women criminals, are hardly ever known to display remorse of any kind. The mind of an innocent woman is only too likely to be upset by such a day as that passed by Mrs. Booth, but a criminal having expected it would remain quite unmoved.”
“So you still think she is innocent?”
“I am more convinced than ever.”
“And what have you done to-day?”
“To commence at the beginning—I thought the matter well over last night. You will remember that the doctor said the knife entering the back near the spine, between the ribs, pierced the heart, and caused instantaneous death; but violent muscular movements of the limbs and body were likely to have occurred for some moments afterwards, and the stab could not have been self-inflicted. I felt by no means sure of that. It seemed unlikely, certainly; but any solution of this problem must be an unlikely one, and this appeared at least as feasible and plausible as any. Then I tried to imagine how Mr. Booth could have carried out his purpose. The knife, as you know, had no proper handle, but only the thin pointed haft. Suppose he had stuck it in his bed, raised himself, and fallen backwards on the point, and then, in his pain, turned over—this would account for his position?”
“Why, of course, that’s it, Tom! It’s as plain as possible! Why, you have got more sense than I gave you credit for!”
“But that is not it, Bell. I have carefully examined the bed and the sheet he was lying on, and there is no perforation, such as the haft must have made. Giving up this idea, I had to find another solution. If Mrs. Booth was not the criminal, but some third party, who was that criminal likely to be? Clearly some one resident in the house; this was the more likely. They would be on the spot, and be acquainted with all the small details necessary to execute such a deed undetected. At the same time, it must not be overlooked that a person capable of entering, undisturbed, one locked room, might, perhaps, just as easily have entered a locked-up house.
“I considered the inmates in this order—There was Mrs. Delfosse, the landlady. She is a respectable lady, and known on the Shore for years. In regard to her, the crime could bring no conceivable benefit. Mr. Booth was almost a stranger to her, and his tragic death is likely to prove a serious loss, so I rule her out of the possibles. Next there is the servant girl. Here I thought there might be a clue. These betting men are mostly a fast lot; perhaps Booth had been tampering with her. But Eliza Smith is a quiet, decent girl, engaged to be married to a carpenter, and when she assured me Mr. Booth had not spoken half-a-dozen times to her in his life, I believed her. So I ruled her out. Then there are the other boarders—the two Germans, the brothers Schnider, on the first floor. I said to myself, ‘These foreign fellows are often the kind of men to fancy other men’s wives, and to take strange means to gratify their fancy.’