Wyndham took a newspaper from his pocket and unfolded it.
“Brainard’s brother has offered a reward of five thousand dollars for the arrest of the criminal,” he stated, pointing to an article in the paper.
Dorothy broke the silence with an impatient stamp of her foot. “The fool!” she exclaimed. “He’d better have waited until it’s proven beyond doubt that it was a murder and not a suicide.”
The newspaper crinkled in Millicent’s hand as she took it, and Wyndham, his eyes roving about the cozy corner, stated quietly:
“The police have found that Brainard never shaved himself, but went every morning to a barber shop just below his apartment house. Apparently he never owned a razor, and the police seem to think that evidence precludes all possibility of suicide.”
“I don’t see why,” protested Millicent, looking up from the paper. “If Bruce contemplated suicide he could have purchased a razor.”
“True, but investigation proves that he did not buy a razor at any of the dealers handling them in Washington, or at a pawnshop. I must admit the police have been very thorough in their search,” acknowledged Wyndham. “It’s all in the evening papers.” He stopped for a moment, then added steadily, “I think, no matter how terrible we find the idea, that we must accept the theory that Brainard was murdered.”
Millicent caught her breath. “I don’t agree with you,” she retorted obstinately. “Are we meekly to consider ourselves murderers just because Bruce never, apparently, owned a razor?”
“You are right,” declared Dorothy, but her manner, to Wyndham’s watchful eyes, indicated that she was clutching at a straw rather than announcing her convictions. “Some friend might have loaned him a razor— Heavens! what’s that?”
A loud hail sounded up the staircase. “Millicent! Millicent!” and they recognized Mrs. Porter’s angry accents. “Why in the world are you staying in that cold attic? Come down at once.”