“Find the man who followed your course of reasoning,” she ended, with a stare at Bailey, “and you have found the murderer.”
“With that reasoning you might suspect me!” said the latter a trifle touchily.
Miss Cornelia did not give an inch.
“I have,” she said. Dale shot a swift, sympathetic glance at her lover, another less sympathetic and more indignant at her aunt. Miss Cornelia smiled.
“However, I now suspect somebody else,” she said. They waited for her to reveal the name of the suspect but she kept her own counsel. By now she had entirely given up confidence if not in the probity at least in the intelligence of all persons, male or female, under the age of sixty-five.
She rang the bell for Billy. But Dale was still worrying over the possible effects of the confidence she had given Doctor Wells.
“Then you think the Doctor may give this paper to Mr. Anderson?” she asked.
“He may or he may not. It is entirely possible that he may elect to search for this room himself! He may even already have gone upstairs!”
She moved quickly to the door and glanced across toward the dining-room, but so far apparently all was safe. The Doctor was at the table making a pretense of drinking a cup of coffee and Billy was in close attendance. That the Doctor already had the paper she was certain; it was the use he intended to make of it that was her concern.
She signaled to the Jap and he came out into the hall. Beresford, she learned, was still in the kitchen with his revolver, waiting for another attempt on the door and the detective was still outside in his search. To Billy she gave her order in a low voice.