"If you think I'm mistaken, I'll leave it to any unprejudiced person
or your own eyesight. Thumbprints never lie," he said in a flat,
convincing voice. Miss Cornelia stared at him--disappointment
written large on her features. He allowed himself a little ironic
smile.
"Did you ever try a good cigar when you wanted to think?" he queried
suavely, puffing upon his own.
But Miss Cornelia's spirit was too broken by the collapse of her
dearly loved and adroitly managed scheme for her to take up the
gauge of battle he offered.
"I still believe it was the Doctor," she said stubbornly. But her
tones were not the tones of utter conviction which she had used
before.
"And yet," said the detective, ruthlessly demolishing another link
in her broken chain of evidence, "the Doctor was in this room
tonight, according to your own statement, when the anonymous letter
came through the window."
Miss Cornelia gazed at him blankly, for the first time in her life
at a loss for an appropriately sharp retort. It was true--the
Doctor had been here in the room beside her when the stone bearing
the last anonymous warning had crashed through the windowpane. And
yet--
Billy's entrance in answer to Beresford's ring made her mind turn
to other matters for the moment. Why had Beresford's manner changed
so, and what was he saying to Billy now?
"Tell the gardener Miss Van Gorder wants him and don't say we're
all here," the young lawyer commanded the butler sharply.
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