“You have a high regard for the young lady—­you are close friends?”

“More.  I may as well tell you, though so far Margaret and I have kept the matter more or less a secret.  I love her and we are engaged to be married.”

“Did Mr. Langmore know of his daughter’s engagement?”

“He did, and he approved of it.”

“And what of Mrs. Langmore, didn’t she approve?”

“She did not know of it.  Margaret did not tell her.”

“Why not?”

“Because—­well, the young lady and her stepmother did not get along very well together.  Margaret wanted to be friendly, but Mrs. Langmore was very dictatorial, and besides she loved her own children better than Mr. Langmore’s.”

“Let me ask, was the daughter on good terms with her father?”

“Yes, excepting on one point.  He wished her to obey her stepmother and that she was not always willing to do.  This brought on a run of petty quarrels which fairly made Margaret sick.”

“And this is the reason why the police think Miss Langmore the guilty person?”

“It is.  Their theory is that she first quarrelled with her stepmother and murdered her, and then struck down her father to cover her guilt, he having discovered what she was doing.”

“How old is Miss Langmore?”

“She has just passed her twenty-third birthday.”

“Humph!  Rather young to commit such a cold-blooded crime as this.”

“She never did do it—­I’ll wager my life on it!  Oh, it’s absurd—­insulting!  But what are you going to do with a lot of pig-headed country police—­”

“How did they come to suspect her?  Was there nothing else?”

“Yes, there was.  Mrs. Bardon, the woman who lives next door, is a great gossip and one who is continually poking her nose into other folks’ business.  She told the police that she was out in the garden cutting a bouquet early in the morning, and she heard a violent quarrel going on at the breakfast table between Mrs. Langmore and Margaret, and that Mr. Langmore took his wife’s part.  Margaret wished to give a small house party and Mrs. Langmore would not listen to it.”

“Did Mrs. Bardon hear all that was said?”

“No, only enough to make her run to the police with the tale.”

“Is any other house near by?”

“The Harrison mansion, but it is locked up, as the family is in Europe.”

“Did you hear if Mrs. Bardon and her son were home all morning?”

“They were, excepting when the doctor went out to make some calls, between nine and eleven.”

“Did they see any suspicious characters around the Langmore mansion?”

“Not a soul.”

“Did Mary Billings, the servant, see anybody?”

“She thinks she saw somebody near the river, but she is not sure; in fact, she is so scared that she is all mixed up.  She has told the police a thousand times that she had nothing to do with the crime.”