we can get to the solution quickly.
'And now, Mr. Atwater, when did the murder occur:'
'Some time between eleven o'clock last night and seven this morning.'
'How do you know?'
'We had been playing bridge after dinner -- my daughter, Bernice (he indicated a tall, dark girl quietly weeping in a corner), Mr. Elwood, myself, and -- oh, it's terrible! Alive and well at eleven o'clock last night and now lying cold and dead up there -- murdered, foully, cruelly murdered.'
'Who discovered the body?' snapped Muldoon.
'My secretary, Foley, over there, he replied, pointing.
'Who was in the house between eleven o'clock last night and seven this morning?' asked Muldoon.
'Just those who are in the room now,' replied Atwater, '--and of course--' he nodded his head toward the upper floor where the corpse lay.
'I understand,' said Muldoon -- 'you, your daughter, your secretary, Mr. Elwood, and who's that man there?'
'That is Charles, my chauffeur and, ah, well, he is a sort of valet , too.'
'Where were the other servants,' explained Atwater, 'that is, beside Charles; a man and his wife. They had been with us only a few days, and they were most unsatisfactory. They left after dinner last night.'
'You paid them off, and they left and did not return - is that right?'
'Yes.'
'Were the deceased and Mr. Elwood members of your household?'
'Oh, no. They are guests. I sent Charles to the station to get them yesterday evening, and we had dinner about nine o'clock. It was the late dinner that caused the butler and his wife to leave; they were disagreeable about it.'
Muldoon turned to the chauffeur, a sullen appearing man with a deep scar across one cheek. 'What time did you pick these guests up at the station, Charles?'
'Their train got in a 7:45 last night, but I had a little trouble finding them -- I hadn't never seen them before -- and it was about eight o'clock before I picked 'em out of the crowd.'
Muldoon swung swiftly toward the secretary. 'Why did you go to that room at seven o'clock this morning?'
The suddenness of it made me jump, and I saw Foley gasp.
'I -- I -- ' stammered the secretary.' Some one had to awaken the guests, and there were no servants in the house. I just went there to wake--'
'Foley, you're lying to me -- you know who committed this crime. Come on -- out with it!'
'Yes, I know,' blurted the secretary; 'but I'll never tell.'
'You were with the murderer last night?' demanded the inspector.
'I was not. The last time I saw the murderer yesterday was while we were playing tennis together.'
'That is all for the present, Foley,' said Muldoon, and then he looked over at the tall, dark girl. 'You are Miss Atwater?' he asked.
'I am.'
'Are you well acquainted with Mr. Elwood?'
'We are engaged to be married -- we hoped to be married the tenth of next month, my birthday and his, too.'
'You are both the same age?'
'I am a year younger than he.'
'What relation was he, if any, to the victim of this crime?'
'He was a nephew.'
'Was there any reason why the deceased should object to this marriage?'
At this question, Bernice Atwater broke down and commenced to cry. 'I don't see why you should torture me with questions,' she sobbed. 'Haven't I been through enough already?'
'Then there was a reason?' insisted Muldoon.
'Yes -- oh, it was a matter of money. You see, Jerry -- Mr. Elwood -- was to come into his money when he married. It is in a trust, and the trustee -- well -- had speculated and lost a lot of it. If Jerry married, it would all come out.'
'Was the deceased the trustee?'
'Yes.'
Jerry Elwood was a short , unprepossessing looking person with thick-lensed spectacles that give him an owlish cast of countenance. During the interview he had been smoking one cigarette after another almost as rapidly as he could light them, taking a few puffs at each before pressing the fire out in the bottom of an ash receiver; then nervously extracting another from a gold cigarette case.
