“I’ve thought of it, of course. Who wouldn’t? But—well, with Miss Video’s death, and the Judge’s, I’ve rather discarded her. I feel the three are the work of one. A woman is seldom a good wholesale murderer.”
“Granted. But she’s tarnation clever. Her record isn’t savory, as we all know. Though I admit the motives, such as we have, don’t fall her way. This man Crawford has motive enough for a couple—perhaps even the third, for if he wished to destroy the Diary, as he conceivably would, and Blake was the first to nab it, Blake might have to die. Yes, it looks black for Mr. Crawford. What do you say, Sergeant?”
“My feeling exactly. It looks mighty black for Mr. Crawford. Him that kills once can kill again and kill easier. Come on: let’s catch him cold before he clears out. And before there’s any more shooting. One, two, three murders—”
XIII
The words were scarcely spoken when the air was again split by gunfire. A very sharp report came from somewhere: the yard, the basement, or the servant’s wing. It acted as a signal for a pell-mell return of the others from library to dining-room.
“If that was in the kitchen,” Julian, who led the re-entry by a yard, said with solemn severity, “it looks to me as if they’d invaded neutral territory and something should be done about it.”
Sergeant Stebbins, who seemed to have a keener ear for direction, hurriedly threw up the window on the view, and shouted in the stentorian accents of the law:
“Say, what’s the shootin’ all about, idiots? Haven’t you no restraints? What’d you see, a jack-rabbit?”
“We wasn’t shooting, sir,” a distant voice came up as through a funnel. “There’s somebody way back down in under the porch. Guess they fired accidental-like.”
“Accidental Hell! Go get ’em.”