Part 26 (2/2)

”No; of course not. That might have been the case.”

”And then, when you took Mr Vail up, was no doubt the moment she chose to stab him and immediately pulled out the knife and ran away.”

”We know,” said Moore, positively, ”that whoever did it, did it while I took Mr Vail up, and that the murderer then pulled out the knife and ran away. But that's not saying it was Miss Prall. And I've got to have some sort of evidence before I'll believe it was. Her desire to be rid of Sir Herbert isn't enough, to my mind, to indicate that she killed him. Can you tie it onto her any more definitely?”

”Her owners.h.i.+p of the knife, and her making no effort to find it, though missing, are evidence enough for me,” said Corson doggedly. ”And, how'd those little chorus chickens get it, if they're the ones?”

”I don't think they're the ones,” Moore declared; ”but I do think it was those two chambermaids. They could get the knife from the Prall apartment easy enough, and maybe Miss Prall did question Maggie about the missing knife and maybe Maggie gave a plausible explanation for its disappearance.”

”Maybe and maybe and maybe not!” observed Gibbs, cryptically. ”This sort of talk gets us no-where----”

”Yes it does,” Corson interrupted. ”It's shown us how Miss Prall could have done it. And when you remember that Sir Herbert declared with his dying heartbeats that women did it, and when we have no other women with half as much motive,--those little girls' jealousies are puerile by comparison,--I think we are bound to conclude we're on the right track.”

”If so, let's forge ahead,” and Gibbs nodded energetically. ”What's the next move?”

”Don't move too fast,” advised his colleague. ”And, too, we want to interview those chambermaids. Though I think Miss Prall is at the back of the thing, she may have been aided by those women. They might have been paid----”

”Now, look here,” put in Moore. ”I know Miss Prall better than you two do. And I know if she undertook a thing of this desperate nature, she never called in any outside help. She'd be afraid to trust those women.

And that companion of hers is all the help she'd want. No, sir, if the women Sir Binney recognized were Miss Prall and Miss Gurney, that's all there was of them. Likewise, if it was those two chambermaids, that's all there was of _them_. But they never combined forces; no, sir, they didn't!”

”I believe that.” Gibbs nodded his head. ”Now, let's take a look at this paper again.”

The paper left by the dying man had been carefully placed between two small panes of gla.s.s, in order to keep it intact and undefaced.

As Gibbs studied the pa.s.se-partout, he said, thoughtfully, ”We must make up our minds what he meant in this second line. It's unintelligible, but what _could_ he have meant? 'Get bo----'”

”I think it means get both,” said Corson, positively; ”but it mayn't be that at all. As it was the very last effort of his spent muscles, it is far from likely that he wrote just what he meant to write. He might have intended that second letter for a or o or g or, in fact, almost any letter! He lost control of his fingers and the pencil fell away from them.”

”All right; I grant you all that,” Gibbs agreed. ”But we've got to start somewhere. Now we know women killed him; he states that. Next, if this word is both, we know there were two women and two only.”

”Marvelous, Holmes, marvelous!” guyed Corson. ”And Miss Prall and Miss Gurney count up just two! Correct, so far.”

”Don't be funny. The chambermaids in question number two also. And there were most likely only two, for women don't go round murdering in squads.

But the point is, he says, get both,--if the word is both. That would seem to imply that one is more probable as a suspect than the other, but he adjures us to get the other one also.”

”There's something to that, Mr Gibbs,” and Bob Moore looked at the detective admiringly. ”Now, if it was a case of Miss Prall and Miss Gurney, they're so much together, that such a message would be practically unnecessary. So it may point to the chambermaids. You see, Maggie is on his floor, but he may have meant that Jane, too, was implicated.”

”Oh, rubbis.h.!.+” cried Corson. ”A dying man isn't going to use his last gasp to tell the police to get a certain chambermaid! That word isn't 'both' at all. It's something far more significant. I think it's a name.

I think it's a name that begins with Ba or Bo. Now, I'm as well aware as you two men are, that my own name begins with Bo and my girl's last name with Ba. But I'm not afraid, for I didn't do it. I was upstairs at the time, and anyway I'd no grudge against the old fellow. Nor did Julie do it. And he never would have called her Baxter, if she had! So, I say that I think it represents some name, and all possible names ought to be investigated.”

”The trouble is it might represent so many names,” Gibbs said. ”I think myself that he might have meant to make a capital letter and only achieved a small one, but never mind that. Ba could be Babe Russell,--but I can't seem to think he'd take that method of accusation.

If it had been a man who killed him he would be more likely to feel revengeful.”

”Good heavens, Gibbs!” and Corson's eyes opened wide; ”I guess if you'd just been fatally stabbed by your lady friends, and had enough s.p.u.n.k to tell that women killed you, you wouldn't hesitate at bringing a name into the limelight! I've had a hunch it was that Baby Doll all along,--but it looked like an impossibility.”

”So you see,” offered Bob Moore, ”you can't deduce much from that second line. And we may be 'way off. It might have been meant for, 'Get busy'

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