But it could not be!
There were facts, cold, stony facts, that loomed mountain high, cutting off this path. These facts could not be avoided.
“But, Miss Lebetwood!” I cried hoarsely, “it won’t do.”
“Won’t do!” resounded the voice of our host, a man of imponderable mind.
“The placards!” I insisted. “Why, I remember clearly the one in Cosgrove’s room had been left after Toby had gone to wherever-it-was to fetch my bag—absolutely no question about that. That afternoon, too, the one Mrs. Bartholomew picked up by the library tower: I’ll swear by the beard of the Prophet it wasn’t there when I went past a few minutes before the tragedy occurred. And Toby was peeling potatoes then. It’s inconceivable—absolutely inconceivable—that he could have had anything to do with them.”
Her eyes still shut, Miss Lebetwood said quietly, “I think I can tell who it was. Not Toby, I’ll admit, but that doesn’t alter the rest of what I’ve said about him. Toby didn’t write those placards, or leave them, and I am sure he knows no more about them than he knows about—that one there!”
The hair at the back of my neck prickled, and my spine seemed to be wriggling in convulsions. A dozen cries, loud or stunned, sounded as if from one multi-vocal throat. For the American girl’s eyes were open now, and her arm pointed to the musicians’ gallery. Indistinct, hanging outside the bright zone of the globe, but unmistakable, a fifth placard was suspended from the rail of the balustrade.
“My God!”
“I’ll take oath that wasn’t there when we came in,” declared Crofts, and many voices supported him.
It was I who rose like a brisk automaton, kicked my chair back against the wall, and sped up the stairs to the gallery, where I had never set foot before. The placard hung by a black thread attached to a pin. I seized it, carried it down to the light. Now we might have been some multi-headed creature studying the inscription: