“Quite right.” McLean’s hand dropped to his side. “Well, murder presupposes the presence of some one beside the victim. I see only one teacup, one plate with two sandwiches and a piece of cake, another plate with a half-eaten peach. Not a very bountiful repast. Now, while Miss Baird was poor, she was hospitable, inspector; had any one been here, her visitor would have been provided with a cup of tea at least.”
“Perhaps—but suppose she wasn’t aware of the, er, visitor’s presence?” asked Mitchell.
McLean eyed him in silence for a second. “Have you found any indication of another’s presence?” he questioned. “Any clues?”
“Nothing worth mentioning now,” responded Mitchell, evasively. “Can you give me the name of an intimate friend to whom Miss Baird may have gone?”
“Why, certainly; there’s—let me see—” McLean pulled himself up short. Who were Kitty Baird’s intimate friends—her girl friends? He could enumerate dozens of men whose admiration for her was sincere and unconcealed, but when it came to the girls in their set—pshaw! women were cats! Kitty’s popularity had not endeared her to her own sex.
“You might try Mrs. Amos Parsons,” he suggested, and pointed to the telephone table in a corner of the library. “Kitty is her private secretary. No, wait,” as Mitchell snatched up the telephone book and hastily turned its well-thumbed pages. “She may be with her cousins, Mr. and Mrs. Ben Potter. Here, I’ll look up their number for you.”
Mitchell hung up the receiver in disgust a minute later. “Central declares no one answers,” he explained. “Who shall we try next? Mrs. Parsons, did you say?” This time he was more successful in getting the number desired, but the reply to his question was unsatisfactory. “The butler declares Miss Baird hasn’t been there since yesterday,” he told his companion. “Mrs. Parsons is not at home.”
McLean’s expression had grown serious. “We had better communicate with Charles Craige,” he said. “Craige has handled Miss Baird’s affairs for years, lawyer, agent, and all that. He may aid us in locating Kitty.” Then with a touch of impatience, “Don’t stop to look up the number of his law office—it is Main 3300.”
As Inspector Mitchell turned again to the telephone, McLean rose and slowly paced back and forth the length of the library. His familiarity with the furnishings and the contents of the bookcases—his taste in literature having coincided with that of Colonel Baird, who spent the last years of his life squandering a depleted fortune to gratify his craving as a collector—caused him to pay little attention to his surroundings, and he walked with head bent, his thoughts with the dead woman upstairs.
Was Inspector Mitchell right—could it have been murder? Who would have reason to harm so feeble an old lady? What motive could have inspired such a senseless crime? Robbery—bah, thieves would not kill to secure books and knickknacks of doubtful value.