“I think just this, Joan. I think I know now who did it.”
Joan gave a gasp. “You know who did it!” she repeated.
“Well, I don’t know; but I think I have a very good idea.”
“Do you mean you’ve got some evidence at last. Who was it, Bob? Tell me.”
“No, I haven’t any fresh evidence yet. I’ve just been thinking. But I believe it was”—Ellery paused—“Carter Woodman.”
Joan gave a half-cry of surprise. “Bob, Bob, you can’t mean that. Whatever makes you say such a thing? My dear boy, it’s quite absurd.”
“Why is it absurd, Joan?”
“Well, Carter’s a member of the family, and one of our oldest friends, and—but what’s the use of discussing it? Why, he was here yesterday.”
“He may be here today, dear; but I don’t see what that has to do with it.”
“But Carter’s been helping the police all through. He’s—”
“Isn’t that just what he would do if he were guilty?”
“My dear Bob, this is absurd. We know that Carter was in the Cunningham Hotel all the evening. He couldn’t have done it. Really—”
“Do you think that the man who was clever enough to fasten all that suspicion on your stepfather wouldn’t be clever enough to provide himself with a passable alibi?”
“Oh, yes. But all this doesn’t tell me why you suspect Carter. Put it out of your mind, Bob. I know you don’t like him, but that doesn’t mean that he has committed murder.”
“I’ve said to myself already everything that you are saying now. But I still believe that he did it.”
“Why, Bob? Have you any reason—any proof at all, I mean?”
“No, I’ve no proof; but I’ve an idea. It’s a question of elimination. If nobody else did it, then he did.”
“But, my dear boy, what possible motive could he have had? People don’t commit murders just for fun. Do be reasonable. Carter was on quite good terms with both George and John, and he had no reason for killing either of them.”
“Do you mean that, Joan?” said Ellery, with a sense of disappointment. “I hoped you would be able to explain to me what motive he could have had. Come now, doesn’t he really stand to gain something—I mean, don’t you think Sir Vernon may make him his heir, or something of that sort?”
Joan paused. “Yes, Bob,” she said, with a sigh. “There I think you’re right. Sir Vernon will very likely put Carter in John’s place, I should imagine. But—”
“Well, isn’t that a motive?”
“No, my dear, it isn’t. After all, we don’t know that he will, and I’m quite sure people don’t commit carefully planned murders just on a chance like that. Really, Bob, it’s ridiculous.”
Ellery said nothing, but got up and strode across the room. Then he turned and faced Joan. “Look here,” he said, “supposing we hadn’t cleared old Walter, and he had been put out of the way as well as Prinsep and George. Who’d have been the heir then—the next of kin, I mean?”
“Oh, Carter, I suppose. But you don’t suggest—”
“My dear child, we’ve been a pair of fools. By George, I wasn’t sure; but I’m sure now. What you’ve just said makes it clear as clear.”
“Makes what clear?”
“Why, the motive. Of course, I ought to have seen it before.”
“Ought to have seen it before? Ought to have seen what?”
“Why, whoever murdered John and George did his best to throw the suspicion on your stepfather, didn’t he?”
“Yes, I suppose he did.”
“And if your stepfather had been convicted, Woodman could have stepped into Sir Vernon’s shoes without a word said as the next heir.”
“When Sir Vernon died—yes. Probably, he could.”
“And wasn’t all this the surest way of hastening his end? But that is not my point. As long as Walter Brooklyn was likely to be convicted, the man I suspect stood to inherit Sir Vernon’s money, and to step at once into Prinsep’s shoes. He had murdered two of the people who stood in his way, and he did his best to murder the third judicially by faking up evidence against him. If Walter Brooklyn was convicted, he was quite safe to get both the money and the control of the theatres. That’s what he was after when he tried to get your stepfather convicted of murder. Doesn’t that theory fit the facts?”
“I suppose it does, Bob. But it would be a simply horrible thing to have to believe, and it doesn’t convince me in the least. I don’t like Carter; but we’ve treated him as almost one of the family all these years. Could he possibly have done such a thing?”
“I don’t like him either—in fact, I dislike him very strongly—and I believe he could—and did. But it won’t be easy to prove it.”
“But, Bob, it can’t be true. Carter was with the others at the Cunningham all the time on the night when John and George were killed.”
“I know he said he was; but was he? A thing like that needs to be proved. Why, he’s the only man who had any reason for killing these three people, and, unless he can prove conclusively that he didn’t kill two of them, and do his best to get the law to kill the third, I shall go on believing that he did. At any rate, I mean to look into it.”
“But you can’t possibly bring a charge of that sort without proof.”
“You and I are going to find the proof, and there are two things you can do to help. First, you must find out—from Marian will probably be best—where Woodman really was on Tuesday night, I mean whether he positively was with them in the hotel all the evening. I don’t believe he was.”
“My dear boy, it would be simply horrible to have to go and ask Marian things like that, when I can’t possibly tell her why we want to know them. To think that she is actually living with the Woodmans, without an
