“My chauffeur and Mr. Potter.”
“Is that so?” Kitty’s smile was peculiar as she glanced at her cousin. “Has it occurred to you that it may be manufactured evidence?”
Mitchell looked at her in astonishment. “Are you accusing your cousin of lying?”
“He is accusing me of a far more despicable crime,” she retorted. “Of wilfully aiding in the murder of my aunt, of trying to kill the man whom, last night, I promised to marry—” she faced them proudly, her heart beating with suffocating rapidity. Why, why had not Ted Rodgers spoken in her defense? “Mr. Rodgers,” she went on, after an almost imperceptible pause, “was shot by a person riding in a car which passed us when we were driving in Rock Creek Park last night. When I left this house with Mr. Rodgers, my revolver was upstairs in the drawer of my desk—” Again she paused, finding speech difficult—her throat felt parched and dry. “Upon my return I found not only you waiting for me, Inspector Mitchell, but Mr. Potter. My cousin knew where I kept my revolver; it was no secret. He could easily have slipped upstairs during the confusion of getting Mr. Rodgers to bed and sending for a nurse and doctor, secured my revolver and, unknown to you, dropped it in Mr. Rodgers’ car—for the purpose of incriminating me.”
“And Mr. Potter’s object in doing that?” questioned Mitchell, as she came to a breathless pause.
“Ask him—” and Kitty pointed to her cousin, who had half risen, then dropped back in his chair. Mitchell stared at them both for a second, then faced the throne-shaped chair.
“Can you tell us who shot you, Mr. Rodgers?” he
Rodgers opened his eyes and faced their concentrated attention.
“Miss Baird,” he commenced, and Kitty almost cried out at the formality of his address, “has told you how the revolver might have been ‘planted’ in my car to incriminate her. To be exact it was thrown into the car by the person who shot me, and with it a handkerchief.” He fumbled in his pocket and pulled out a piece of linen, bloodstained and torn. “You bound my head, did you not, before you started to drive me home?” turning to Kitty.
“Yes.”