“You don’t say so! Well, I guess we will add Brent to our list of possible suspects!”
CHAPTER XVII
“WALK INTO MY PARLOR”
The beds in the vacant guest-rooms were already made up. Stimson saw to it that the detectives had towels, then went his final rounds with quiet and melancholy dignity.
He left one large globe to light the main hall, a standard lamp switched on in the library for the policeman on guard there and a ceiling light at the head of the stairs. At the end of each hall in the wing a single bulb burned all night as a guide to the fire-escape staircase. Except for these and the bedrooms whose tenants had not yet retired, Stimson left the house in darkness, mounting, somber and noiseless as a shadow, to his own suite on the third floor.
When he had switched on his light and closed the door behind him he went straight to his suit of day livery and felt in the pocket in which Landis had discovered the bit of feather. Finding nothing, he withdrew his hand slowly and stared down at his empty palm with thoughtful eyes.
Fifteen minutes later he had prepared for bed, propped up his pillows and settled himself to read his usual chapter or two before turning out the light.
It was close on midnight when the butler got into bed. Between twelve and twelve-thirty the two policemen patrolling the grounds saw the lights in the various bedrooms wink out, including the glow from Stimson’s window. Indoors, the big house settled gradually to silence.
By a quarter to one the stillness was broken only by an occasional movement from the policeman in the library and a rumble like distant thunder from Bernard’s room.