LITMIR.BIZ

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me if I owned a revolver, and I told him ‘yes.’ If I hadn’t, some of the servants or one of my loving family would have told him. And I thought the truth was best.”

      Sibella smiled satirically.

      “My older brother, you observe, is a model of all the old-fashioned virtues,” she remarked to Vance. But she was obviously distraite. The revolver episode had somewhat shaken her self-assurance.

      “You say, Miss Greene, that the burglar idea does not appeal to you.” Vance was smoking languidly with half-closed eyes. “Can you think of any other explanation for the tragedy?”

      The girl raised her head and regarded him calculatingly.

      “Because I don’t happen to believe in burglars that shoot women and sneak away without taking anything, it doesn’t mean that I can suggest alternatives. I’m not a policewoman—though I’ve often thought it would be jolly good sport—and I had a vague idea it was the business of the police to run down criminals.—You don’t believe in the burglar either, Mr. Vance, or you wouldn’t have followed up Chet’s hunch. Who do you think ran amuck here last night?”

      “My dear girl!” Vance raised a protesting hand. “If I had the foggiest idea I wouldn’t be annoying you with impertinent questions. I’m plodding with leaden feet in a veritable bog of ignorance.”

      He spoke negligently, but Sibella’s eyes were clouded with suspicion. Presently, however, she laughed gaily and held out her hand.

      “Another Régie, monsieur. I was on the verge of becoming serious; and I simply mustn’t become serious. It’s so frightfully boring. Besides, it gives one wrinkles. And I’m much too young for wrinkles.”

      “Like Ninon de L’Enclos, you’ll aways be too young for wrinkles,” rejoined Vance, holding a match to her cigarette. “But perhaps you can suggest, without becoming too serious, some one who might have had a reason for wanting to kill your two sisters.”

“Oh, as for that, I’d say we’d all come under suspicion. We’re not an ideal home circle, by any means. In fact, the Greenes are a queer collection. We don’t love one another the way a perfectly nice and proper family should. We’re always at each other’s throats, bickering and fighting about something or other. It’s rather a mess—this ménage. It’s a wonder to me murder hasn’t been done long before. And we’ve all got to live here until 1932, or go it on our own; and, of course, none of us could make a decent living. A sweet paternal heritage!”⁹

      She smoked moodily for a few moments.

      “Yes, any one of us had ample reason to be murderously inclined toward all the others. Chet there would strangle me now if he didn’t think the nervous aftermath of the act would spoil his golf—wouldn’t you, Chet dear? Rex regards us all as inferiors, and probably considers himself highly indulgent and altruistic not to have murdered us all long ago. And the only reason mother hasn’t killed us is that she’s paralyzed and can’t manage it. Julia, too, for that matter, could have seen us all boiled in oil without turning a hair. And as for Ada”—her brows contracted and an extraordinary ferocity crept into her eyes—“she’d dearly love to see us all exterminated. She’s not really one of us, and she hates us. Nor would I myself have any scruples about doing away with the rest of my fond family. I’ve thought of it often, but I could never decide on a nice thorough method.” She flicked her cigarette ash on the floor. “So there you are. If you’re looking for possibilities you have them galore. There’s no one under this ancestral roof who couldn’t qualify.”

      Though her words were meant to be satirical, I could not help feeling that a sombre, terrible truth underlay them. Vance, though apparently listening with amusement, had, I knew, been absorbing every inflection of her voice and play of expression, in an effort to relate the details of her sweeping indictment to the problem in hand.

      “At any rate,” he remarked offhandedly, “you are an amazingly frank young woman. However, I sha’n’t recommend your arrest just yet. I haven’t a particle of evidence against you, don’t y’ know. Annoyin’, ain’t it?”

      “Oh, well,” sighed the girl, in mock disappointment, “you may pick up a clew later on. There’ll probably be another death or two around here before long. I’d hate to think the murderer would give up the job with so little really accomplished.”

      At this point Doctor Von Blon entered the drawing-room. Chester rose to greet him, and the formalities of introduction were quickly over. Von Blon bowed with reserved cordiality; but I noted that his manner to Sibella, while pleasant, was casual in the extreme. I wondered a little about this, but I recalled that he was an old friend of the family and probably took many of the social amenities for granted.

      “What have you to report, doctor?” asked Markham. “Will we be able to question the young lady this afternoon?”

      “I hardly think there’d be any harm in it,” Von Blon returned, seating himself beside Chester. “Ada has only a little reaction fever now, though she’s suffering from shock, and is pretty weak from loss of blood.”

      Doctor Von Blon was a suave, smooth-faced man of forty, with small, almost feminine features and an air of unwavering amiability. His urbanity struck me as too artificial—“professional” is perhaps the word—and there was something of the ambitious egoist about him. But I was far more attracted than repelled by him.

      Vance watched him attentively as he spoke. He was more anxious even than Heath, I think, to question the girl.

      “It was not a particularly serious wound, then?” Markham asked.

      “No, not serious,” the doctor assured him; “though it barely missed being fatal. Had the shot gone an inch deeper it would have torn across the lung. It was a very narrow escape.”

      “As I understand it,” interposed Vance, “the bullet travelled transversely over the left scapular region.”

      Von Blon inclined his head in agreement.

      “The shot was obviously aimed at the heart from the rear,” he explained, in his soft, modulated voice. “But Ada must have turned slightly to the right just as the revolver exploded; and the bullet, instead of going directly into her body, ploughed along the shoulder-blade at the level of the third dorsal vertebra, tore the capsular ligament, and lodged in the deltoid.” He indicated the location of the deltoid on his own left arm.

      “She had,” suggested Vance, “apparently turned her back on her assailant and attempted to run away; and he had followed her and placed the revolver almost against her back.—Is that your interpretation of it, doctor?”

      “Yes, that would seem to be the situation. And, as I said, at the crucial moment she veered a little, and thus saved her life.”

      “Would she have fallen immediately to the floor, despite the actual superficiality of the wound?”

      “It’s not unlikely. Not only would the pain have been considerable, but the shock must be taken into account. Ada—or, for that matter, any woman—might have fainted at once.”

      “And it’s a reasonable presumption,” pursued Vance, “that her assailant would have taken it for granted that the shot had been fatal.”

      “We may readily assume that to be the case.”

      Vance smoked a moment, his eyes averted.

      “Yes,” he agreed, “I think we may assume that.—And another point suggests itself. Since Miss Ada was in front of the dressing-table, a considerable distance from the bed, and since the weapon was held practically against her, the encounter would seem to take on the nature of a deliberate attack, rather than a haphazard shot fired by some one in a panic.”

      Von Blon looked shrewdly at Vance, and then turned a questioning gaze upon Heath. For a moment he was silent, as if weighing his reply, and when he spoke it was with guarded reserve.

      “Of

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