“Four. Over and over again. ‘Four, four, four.’ What do you make of it?”
Slowly Doctor Stone filled a pipe, struck a match, and puffed in unhurried contemplation. “It may be, Tucker, he meant that all four were concerned in his murder.”
Otis King laughed. “Doctor,” he said easily, “that shot misses the target. There isn’t one of us trusts any of the other three. You couldn’t get us into a combine.”
“You must know each other,” the doctor observed.
Fred Waring jumped angrily to his feet. “Look here, Doctor——”
Lady growled deep in her throat, and Waring slumped into a chair and watched the dog.
“Then,” Dr. Stone said slowly, “if all of you are not concerned, one man’s hand is stained with blood.”
Freeman still continued to run his hand soundlessly across the keys. Lawton gave the doctor a quick, sidelong glance, and stared down at the floor.
“Which one?” King asked coolly; and now, for the first time Joe noticed that he alone, of the four in the room, was fully dressed.
Dr. Stone’s hand touched the dog’s head. “I may tell you—later. First, I should like to know how all of you happened to arrive here yesterday. Did the old man invite you?”