Fulton smiled, and for a moment his grief seemed lightened by the hint of happy memories.
"Ah, you didn't know my daughter, sir," he said. "She was irresistible, not to be denied—one of the ardent flames of life. If she had asked me, I would have given her treble that amount—anything, anything, sir."
Bristow thought of what had been said of her in Atlanta: that all women liked her and that any man who had shaken hands with her was her unquestioning servant. Surely such a woman would have been irresistible in her requests to her father.
He ventured another line of inquiry:
"When you arrived at Number Five this morning, I was in the living room, and I saw the meeting between you and Miss Maria Fulton. I came away as soon as I could, but I couldn't help noting your expression as you greeted her. It seemed to me that there was accusation in it."
"There was," the old man assented. "Enid had written me that Maria had been pressing her for money, too much money. Naturally, when I heard of the—the tragedy, I coupled it with the old, old thing that had always been a burden on Enid—money. And this time I blamed Maria. Of course, however, that was a mistake."
"I see," said Bristow.
He returned to his porch and sat down. He went over all that the father of the dead woman had told him. So far as he could see, it had only served the purpose of strengthening the case against Morley. Let it be discovered that Maria had known Morley at the time of the Atlantic City affair, and the case would be fixed, irrefutable. And Braceway would win out.
Of course, there was still one chance. There was the bare possibility that Morley had gone to No. 5 to murder Enid if he did not get more money from her, and that he had been frustrated by the fact that the negro Perry had forestalled him and done the murder first. Having advanced it, Bristow did not care to abandon the theory that Perry was the guilty man.
An automobile whirled up Manniston Road and stopped in front of No. 9. His physician, Dr. Mowbray, sprang from the car and up the steps.