"What do you mean?" asked McKelvie quickly.
"I was watching that stock go down, and when he came into the office that afternoon I asked him casually if he had invested. He said, 'Yes, heavily,' in a dull kind of voice, but I thought nothing more about it, because he was always pessimistic whenever he speculated and I also knew he was too cautious to put up more than he could afford. I can't believe he could have invested his whole fortune," and Orton shook his head with a shrewd glance at us.
"Rumors are apt to exaggerate," responded McKelvie lightly. "By the way, how much was his whole fortune?"
"I don't really know, but I believe he got quite a bit when he married Mrs. Darwin. At least I gathered as much from something she said to him one day when he had been particularly mean to her," explained Orton.
"Do you recall the exact words?" asked McKelvie, ignoring my frown.
"Not the exact words, but the sense of them," answered Orton with a smile. "She wanted to know if he hadn't humiliated her enough when he forced her to sign over to him her fortune, thus leaving her dependent upon him, and he replied with a sneer, 'That's all I married you for, my dear.'"
At that moment I rejoiced in the murder, and should have thought no ill of her if Ruth herself had done it. It was not murder but the justifiable removal of a venomous snake. I was beginning to regret I had not done it myself six months before when it first occurred to me as the only solution to our trouble.
"I think that is all then. Say nothing about our having been here, and I'll do the same with regard to your affairs. By the way, at the trial you may use the alibi you gave the police. You might find it awkward explaining why you lied to them." McKelvie rose as he spoke, and walked toward the door.
"You're not joking? I can give the same evidence I gave before?" gasped Orton incredulously.
"Yes, only take care not to trip yourself up under cross-examination, though I doubt if there is much danger from Mr. Vaughn. Why on earth did you pick that old fossil to defend her?" he continued, as we re-entered my car. "The prosecution will put it all over him from the start."