“Yes. Olma Flynn, who has first watch, could not find it. She told me of its disappearance as soon as I came on duty.”
He nodded slowly.
“Thus providing an easy way into St. Ann’s. … Into the south wing—” he murmured, and broke off, staring into space, his eyes clouded and far away.
Then all at once he began to talk, leaned back in the chair, and linked his hands together.
“In the first place,” he began, “I am convinced that the three crimes are all linked together and that the possession of the radium is the guiding motive. Other motives, such as protection or fear, may enter into the affair but the radium is the main thing. If the radium was actually placed in that loud speaker, it is now in the hands of the person who killed Higgins. To secure the radium was the reason for his entrance into the south wing and into Room 18 last night. We can’t know why Higgins was there—unless—unless—You say that he knew where the radium was hidden; he may have tried to take it himself into his own hands.”
He paused as if to consider that possibility; it did not appear to convince him, for he made an impatient gesture.
“Dr. Hajek,” he resumed, “has flatly denied that he was out last night; the mud has been brushed off his trousers and off the window sill and it is my word against his. Why is he lying? Then, too, there was someone from the Letheny cottage about the grounds last night. Huldah says that someone left the house about midnight; she heard footsteps on the stairs, and the front door squeaks. She did not know whether it was Gainsay or Miss Letheny, but she is certain that someone went out of that house about midnight and returned probably an hour later.”
“Huldah tells the truth always—” I began, but checked myself. If he was willing to talk I was more than willing to listen.
However, I had interrupted him; he looked at me directly and began to speak more briskly and less as if he were thinking aloud.
“You see, Miss Keate, it is all simmering down to the same group, the same circle of those in and about St. Ann’s. No one else could have stolen the key to the south door. And as I say, I am inclined to believe that all three crimes had the same motive, if not the same motivating force.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that in the first two crimes we find several means of death. This leads me to believe that there was a definite plan to steal the radium, possibly on the part of more than one person. In fact, I am quite sure that more than one person had determined to get hold of that radium. But the radium was left in the room. Hidden, but still in Room 18. Why? There is only one possible reason. The thief was interrupted, was forced to hide it there in order to return for it later. But why did the radium remain for so long in the speaker? Why did not the thief return for it earlier in the game? It all points to there being several people interested in that radium, which means, of course, that we may be trying to discover three murderers instead of only one.”
“Three!”
“There were three murders,” he said, laconically cool in the face of my horror. “And Higgins’s statement seems to make it sure that the first two murders were not committed by the same man.”
“I am positive that the radium was concealed in the loud speaker,” he continued after a short pause. “There was no place else for it to be and it must have been in Room 18, for otherwise we would not have had such a series of disturbances in and about that room. Yes, it is evident that several people were convinced that the radium was still in the room and were searching for it. The thing that bothers me is the failure of the—er—original thief to return and remove the radium before anyone else found it.”
“Perhaps it was he last night,” I suggested.
O’Leary did not appear to hear me.
“There is only one reason and that—if true—is amazing.” He reached absently for the shabby little stub of pencil and began twisting it in his fingers, which convinced me that he was on his feet again, so to speak.
Whatever the “amazing” speculation was that had occurred to him, he said nothing more of it.
“I have eliminated certain factors. The first thing to do, you know is to narrow the field of investigation. I find that Mr. Jackson’s relatives, who might be supposed to have an interest in his death, have ironclad alibis.”
“Oh.” I spoke none too brightly as I had never given a thought to Mr. Jackson’s relatives.
“Likewise I am gradually eliminating the unknown factor—I mean by that the possibility of an outsider, a hobo, perhaps, or professional thief acting on the spur of the moment, or following out a planned course of action. It seems more and more certain that those guilty of these crimes are people who are in and about St. Ann’s. But since that phase of the matter is so distasteful to you. …” His voice trailed away into nothing, he dropped the pencil, adjusted his tie, looked at his watch, ran a hand through his hair and reached for the pencil again.
“There are a few matters of which I’ve been wanting to talk with you, Miss Keate. This—” he lowered his voice—“this Hajek. Somehow I have got the impression that he and Miss Letheny see a good deal of each other. Different people have mentioned seeing
