She had planned the thing carefully. She had, if his theory held, probably shot the old man as he sat reading. Then she had locked and barred the great doors and lowered herself to the ground and entered by the garage door which she could have opened from above. Thus the men coming to her aid found a scene prepared which her ingenuity had led them to expect as entirely reasonable.
“By the way,” he demanded suddenly, “how long was the doctor or coroner in getting to Mr. Apthorpe?”
“He didn’t get there until midnight. His motor broke down.”
It was thus impossible to fix accurately the time of Apthorpe’s death.
As they turned from the drive into Groton’s main street a big limousine passed them. To its occupants Mr. Westward raised his hat.
“Mrs. Apthorpe,” he explained, “her daughter and son-in-law, Hugh Fanwood. The other man was Wilkinson the lawyer who acts for Mrs. Apthorpe.” He paused as another car turned into the drive. “Look like detectives,” he commented. “We are well out of it.”
That night Anthony Trent went back to New York. Twenty-four hours later his fast runabout drew up at the Westward’s hospitable home.
“I brought my car over from Boston,” he explained untruthfully, “on my way back to New York by way of the Berkshires and dropped in to see if there was any news in the Apthorpe murder case. The Boston papers had very little I didn’t already know.”
He learned a great deal that interested him. First that Nurse Thompson had been left fifty thousand dollars in the Apthorpe will. This, on the advice of counsel, would not be contested, as the widow desired, on the ground of undue influence. Her daughter Mrs. Hugh Fanwood was not desirous of publicity.
Secondly one of the most famous jewels in the world had been stolen.