Alice ran downstairs. She saw Art Killeen working on a typewriter in the sitting room as she went by. Fred was in tiie kitchen. Alice said, 'May I have a cup of coffee to take with me, Josephine? Fred, Mr. Duff wants you. Come on upstairs.'
Fred came to attention. 'The lawyer's here,' he said, watching her face.
'Yes, I know,' said Alice. 'But come on. Duff wants us.'
As the council went into session. Duff leaned back in a chair beside Innes's bed, quite as if he had all day. Innes reclined on his pillows. Alice sat on a hassock against the wall, following eagerly, and Fred sat in a straight chair at the other side of the bed, facing Duff, his ankle on his knee, looking extremely intelligent.
'This business of the veal in the meat loaf,' said Duff, 'seems to yield very little. It's quite possible that Miss Isabel, who seems most active in the running of the house, deceived herself into thinking it wouldn't matter. She is, I gather, rather set against unnecessary expense. Perhaps she didn't want to prepare another kind of meat, on account of the expense, or on account of the bother, and convinced herself, therefore, that there was no reason to do so. Do you think that's possible, or am I doing Miss Isabel an injustice?'
'You're right,' said Iiines wryly. ''Miss Gertrude is aloof from the details,' Duff went on. 'Perhaps she felt it wasn't any concern of hers. And Maud didn't hear about it beforehand. Maud may have known, at the tabid, that she was eating veal. We do know she said nothing about it But is Maud likely to have said anything about it?'
'No. You're right again. She wouldn't worry. You say you haven't met my sisters?'
'Not yet,' said Duff, 'but Fve been gleaning, here and there. Now, you see, the veal-eating and Mr. Whitlock's consequent iUness may have been the result of carelessness or of a simple mistake.'
'In other words, an accident,' said Fred, whom Duff had gently maneuvered into the position of a man with opinions to give, and who accepted that position simply.
'Yes. And since nothing was actively done, the dinner was served as originally planned, the only crime was neglecting to change it, I don't think the incident can tell us much.'
'Things like that add up, though,' said Alice.
'Oh, yes. Of course. Nevertheless, let's go on to the first attempt to do Mr. Whitlock harm. If it was an attempt and not still another accident The lamp fell off the table upstairs. It might have fallen by itself. None of us can see how. But we can't say it couldn't have happened. The devil in the inanimate, you know. Still, if we assume that someone pushed it over, let's see who might have done so. You point out to me that Miss Maud, who is totally deaf— Is that true, Mr. Whitlock?'
'She never hears anything that I know of,' said Innes.
'Well, being deaf, she couldn't, we say, have known that you were walking down the hall. You had opened the bathroom door, malang a sound, of course, and your footsteps could have been heard. But you couldn't have been seen from upstairs? There is no glass in which you might have been reflected?'
'Lace curtain on the front door,' said Fred prompdy.
'No mirror?'
'It's on the side wall,' Alice said. 'I was standing in front of it. I couldn't see the top of the stairs in it.'
'Could you see the mirror, Mr. Whitlock?'
'No, no, I'm sure I couldn't.'
'Very well,' said Duff. 'This crime, if one, was done by ear. The victim must have been heard approaching, and Maud can't hear. Exit Maud. What about Gertrude, who can't see?'
'She knows every inch of this house,' said Innes. 'She goes anywhere she pleases, upstairs or down. She knows exactly what's on every table. She knew that lamp was there. Nothing's ever changed around in this house. And her ears are sharp.'
'All true,' said Duff. 'But tell me, when was that downstairs bathroom put in?'
'When? About... let me see ...' ' 'Before or after Gertrude lost her sight?'
'Oh, after,' said Innes. 'Some years after.'
'Yes,' said Duff. 'Well... I don't suppose Miss Isabel would have been prevented from pushing that lamp by the fact of her having one arm?'
'Not a bit. Isabel could have pushed the lamp,' said Fred.
'Does anything about their opportunity help us at all? As far as we know, all three of them had the chance to be there in the upstairs hall at that time? Is that right?'
'Not all three,' said Fred. 'One wasn't. But I don't know which one.'
'How is that?'
'When I came up on the front porch, on my way inside, I saw one of them through the window. She was in the parlor. The curtains were drawn across the arch so nobody would know that from the hall. But I saw her,'
'What was she doing?'
'She was looking at the newspaper.'
'Oh?' Duff seemed polite but incredulous. 'The local paper?'
'I dunno. Just a newspaper. But that's why I couldn't see who it was.'
'You could see her feet?'
'Just her skirt,' said Fred. 'It was dark. They all wore dark dresses yesterday.'
Duff sat still a moment. 'Please realize that I am just running lightly over the facts,' he said at last. 'Perhaps I
