“That’s true; but there is hardly any doubt. Nothing was stolen, therefore it is a fairly easy deduction that Mrs. Trevor, disturbed by some noise, went down into the office to investigate and was killed. He had the safe already open, stabbed her, then locked her in. Probably his nerve forsook him, and he fled without stopping to steal what he came for.”
“My dear Dick! Your theory might answer if any other woman was in question; but Mrs. Trevor—she wouldn’t have troubled herself if there had been a cloud-burst in the office. She was simply a human mollusk. And as for—” Mrs. Macallister’s feelings were beyond expression.
“I say, aren’t you a little hard on her? I don’t know when I’ve seen a more beautiful woman, and one so popular—”
“With men,” supplemented Mrs. Macallister, dryly.
Dick laughed outright. “Anyway,” he said, “the police have found that the burglar entered the house by the window on the stair landing, which looks out on the roof of the butler’s pantry. It is an easy climb for an active man. All the windows on the first floor are heavily barred. They found one of the small panes of glass had been cut out, and the window unfastened, although closed. I’m afraid our friend, the burglar, will have a hard time proving his innocence.”
“It is terrible, terrible,” groaned Peggy, who had been reading the paper’s account of the tragedy. “I must go at once and leave a note for Beatrice,” and she started to rise.
“Sit still, child; I have just returned from the Trevors, and left your card and mine with messages.”
“Did you see Beatrice, Granny?”
“No, only that odious Alfred Clark. I cannot bear the man, he is so—so specious—” hunting about for a word. “He told me that Beatrice and the Attorney General would see no one.”
“Beatrice must be terribly upset, poor darling.”