She hesitated a moment, as though uncertain what to answer, then, blushing faintly, confronted him.
"I have often seen that thing in use in the Duggan household. It has laid claim to many a theatrical bout upon an impromptu stage. It has cut pages of books, and slit edges of papers, and——"
"All the more reason why there should have been some significance to every member of the family in it, Miss Dowd."
"That's one up to you—certainly. But you see the last person I had seen using it, the day before yesterday, when I was here with Cynthia, spending the afternoon, was—really, I'd rather not say, Mr. Deland."
"I'm afraid you must, Miss Dowd."
Came a moment's hesitation; meanwhile Cleek watched her narrowly. He saw the colour come and go in her ivory-tinted face, saw the light that came into her eyes at mention of the name which followed, and drew his own immediate conclusions.
"Oh, very well, then. There can be no harm in your knowing. It was Ross Duggan himself. He had been reading a new book which he had sent to London for—'Poisons and Potions of Other Times', I think it was called—and used that very same stiletto to slit the pages with. But that was a couple of days ago, Mr. Deland. Who used it since, I couldn't tell. Or how it got in those curtains, either."
"I see. And that's all you have to tell me?"
Cleek's voice was normal, though he was not a little startled at the news she had imparted to him. Ross, indeed—and reading the musty old book upon "Poisons and Potions", a replica of which stood upon his own study bookshelf in his rooms in Clarges Street, and every word of which he knew by heart! H'm. Strange literature for a young man of normal tastes. And the thing had been in his possession then. Gad! All roads began to lead to Rome with a vengeance! And surely Ross Duggan had the greatest motive for the crime of any one of that strange and unhappy family. And Sir Andrew had been killed, they said, before the name was altered in that will—which at the moment was missing from its hiding-place.
He looked up suddenly into Miss Dowd's eyes. Perhaps this very secretive young woman who was so deeply in love with Ross Duggan as to spirit away clues which she felt might incriminate him under the very noses of his unsuspecting family could enlighten him with regard to that document.