have taken you to the house. Craig, what’s your idea of this? Why do you think he was murdered? If it was because he knew something that was a danger to whoever it was that killed your father, then what was it?”
It was the only motive for his murder that had as yet occurred to any of us; I suppose because it was so obvious. But I thought Craig hesitated. If so, however, it was barely perceptible. He said, “It’s hard to say; Claud was very secretive. Pete, what about these checks to Nicky? It does look like blackmail, but there was nothing anybody could blackmail my father about.
Peter shrugged. “The police found the canceled checks. That’s all I know.”
Craig said suddenly, “I knew about the will, of course; Maud inherits now from Claud.”
And she would inherit fifty thousand dollars; I’d forgotten that. I remembered Maud sitting quietly in the bar while we talked, drinking steadily. And an ugly picture presented itself in my mind: Maud in her dark cloak waiting for Claud in the meadow-and then afterward walking in to Balifold, trying to establish a kind of fumbling alibi, and drinking because she had to, to steady herself for the discovery. She had told me to take the short cut which was the path through the meadow and led inevitably to the discovery of the murder; was that, again, to give herself a semblance of an alibi? Or had it merely happened; everyone knew of and used the path.
And what of the time? Claud had left the inquest fifteen minutes before it adjourned, which would have given him just about enough time to reach the meadow. So what of Maud? How long actually had she been in the bar? And how long had Chivery been dead? Everything would depend upon that, and I didn’t believe that anyone could fix the time of his death with real exactness.
Craig and Peter were probably thinking very much the same thoughts for, after a longish silence Peter said suddenly, “I don’t think she did it, Craig. A woman…”
Nicky came in just then to say there was a dinner of sorts in the dining room. A little to my surprise, Craig tackled him then and there about the checks.
“What were those checks for, Nicky?” he said. “It couldn’t have been an allowance. My father wouldn’t have given you or me or anybody an allowance.”
Nicky answered instantly, promptly, smilingly. “He would have, if Alexia asked him to. As she did for me.”
A slow flush came up into Craig’s face, but his voice was quite level and steady. “Do you know Frederic Miller?” he asked.
This time Nicky didn’t answer promptly; he seemed to stop and think, cautiously. Then he said, “No. What about him? Are there canceled checks to him, too?” There was an eager light in his eyes that baffled me; it was as if he really wanted an answer. But Craig shook his head and made us all go to dinner. Gertrude, the little waitress, popeyed with excitement, stayed with Craig while I ate hurriedly with the others.
I was alone with Craig when the police finally came. Lieutenant Nugent and two other officers. And asked me to bring a towel from the bathroom.
When I spread it out on the foot of the bed so Craig could see, they put down upon it two objects. Neither was exactly pleasant to look at. Quite the reverse, in fact, for one was a small knife, a kitchen paring knife, quite ordinary except its blade was sharpened razor-thin and bright, and it was spotted, especially about the wooden handle, with a dark, dried substance, now turning brown.
The other was a yellow string glove and it, too, was stained in thick reddish brown patches, dry now and stiff.
Both had been found near Claud Chivery’s body, but not near enough for him to have used and dropped, so it did not indicate suicide.
And there were no other clues, except my own white cap and some nickels, which they returned a little ceremoniously to me, Peter already having explained them.
They let me stay; in fact, they requested me to stay, for they wanted to question me, and thus I heard the whole thing. And beyond the fact that they had found no one yet who had seen Claud Chivery after he left the inquest, I knew no more than I had already known.
Except, of course, about the matter of alibis. For it was developing even then that there was a troublesome lack of alibis for that hour or so during which the murder had taken place. They couldn’t, or at least they hadn’t yet been able to fix the time very definitely. They asked me about rigor mortis, I remember, and the temperature of the body when I found it and I could tell them simply nothing. I’d had a kind of impression that he’d been dead for a time when I’d found him; but had no way of giving them a really accurate answer.
They asked me too, for I told them of it, about the rustle I had heard in the brush. I’m not sure, however, that they believed the little I could tell them; it was too tenuous, too unsubstantial a thing.
Nugent told Craig again, briefly, of the inquest, except he didn’t mention the checks Conrad Brent had given Nicky. Mainly they asked Craig about Dr. Chivery: when had he seen him last, what had Chivery said, could he suggest a motive for the murder?
“Did he know anything-any clue or any evidence, about your father’s death?”
“Claud didn’t tell everything he knew,” said Craig obliquely.
Nugent’s green eyes sharpened. “Why do you think he was killed, Brent?”
“I don’t know. But I’d stick to the knife if I were you-for a clue, I mean. The glove…”
“What about the glove?”
“Oh, nothing. It doesn’t seem to mean anything.”
“You’re not being very frank, Brent.”
“I can’t do anything to help you like this. In bed.”
Nugent said slowly, “I’d better tell you that it would help if you had an alibi for this afternoon.”
“
“An alibi always helps,” said Nugent. “But the fact is people are saying-that is-well, it’s like this, Brent. Everyone knows now that you and Mrs. Brent inherit practically all of your father’s money. And everyone knows that you and Mrs. Brent…”
A slow flush was creeping up over Craig’s face; his eyes narrowed. “Well? Say it.”
“You know as well as I do what I mean,” said Nugent. “Everyone thought you and Mrs. Brent were to be married over a year ago; then you married the little nurse and Alexia Senour married your father. Now they’re saying…”
“Listen! I didn’t kill my father! Get that into your head! I didn’t kill Claud, either,” said Craig bleakly. “I’ve no alibi for this afternoon, unless you consider it an alibi not to be able to walk without getting dizzy.”
Nugent leaned forward. “Are you sure of that, Brent?” he said quietly.
An angry flush came over Craig’s face. “My God, do you think I’d stay here if I could help it?” he cried angrily. “Don’t you think I’d get out and do something! Don’t you…”
“What would you do?” broke in Nugent softly.
Craig stopped abruptly. “I don’t know,” he said wearily, after a moment. “I don’t know.”
I said, merely in the line of duty and not to defend Craig, “He couldn’t have murdered Dr. Chivery. He couldn’t have walked that far and back again. I’m sure of that, Lieutenant.”
Nugent’s gray-green gaze plunged at me. “Are you, Miss Keate?”
“Yes. And as to that, Mr. Brent had an alibi the night Mr. Brent-that is, his father-died. I was with him.
“I know,” said Nugent without any expression at all in his face. “Still, sick people have been known to walk incredible distances. And there really is no alibi in the case of murder by poison.”
Craig made a quick motion forward as if to expostulate, and I said hurriedly, “I can’t let you question my patient very long, Lieutenant.” And put my hand on Craig’s wrist. Not, again, to defend Craig but merely because it was my obvious duty. His pulse seemed steady enough, however. And Nugent said,
“All right. Just a few more questions. The night your father died, Brent, you were found in the linen room. How did you get there?”
“I told you everything I knew about that.”
“You said someone struck you. Who?”
“I don’t know. I’ve told you. I didn’t know anyone was near me.”
“You say you were in the hall, starting downstairs, your back to the corridor. How did you get into the linen room where your wife-I mean Miss Cable-found you?”
“I don’t know. That’s the truth. You’ve no case against me.”
Nugent looked at him slowly. “I’m not saying I have,” he said. “But where there’s murder, there’s motive. And
