“All right, play your own game.  I tried to help, by suggesting more suspects—­in a multitude of suspects there is safety—­for our dear Eunice!  And she never did it!  If you can’t contrive a way for either of those two men to get through those bolted doors, then turn your eagle eyes toward Aunt Abby!  She’s a queer Dick—­if you ask me, and Eunice Embury—­well, I admit I resent her coolness last night, but I freely own up that I think her incapable of such a crime.”

“But you two discussed the poisoning business in the play—­” “We did.  But we discussed lots of other points about that play and compared it with other presentations we have seen, and, oh, you’re too absurd to hang a murder on that woman, just because she saw a murder on the stage—­or rather heard the description of one!”

“But that’s the coincidence!  She did hear that murder described fully.  She did talk it over with you.  She did show a special interest in it.  Then, a week or so later, her husband is killed by identically the same method.  She, and she alone—­except for a mild old lady—­has opportunity to do the deed; the instrument of death is found in her cupboard; and she flies into a rage at the first hint of accusation, of the crime!  By the way, if as you hint, one of those men did it, would they leave the medicine dropper that conveyed the poison, in Mrs, Embury’s rooms.  Would they want to bring suspicion against the woman they love?  Answer me that?”

“There might be another solution,” Fifi nodded her wise little head thoughtfully.  “Perhaps whoever did it, tried to throw suspicion on Miss Ames.”

“That makes him a still more despicable villain.  To implicate falsely a harmless old lady—­no, I can’t think that.”

“Yet you think Mrs, Embury did!”

“I don’t know.  Perhaps the two women worked in collusion.  Or Miss Ames might have wakened and learned the truth, and agreed to keep the secret.  In fact, Miss Ames confessed that she did the murder, but we know she was not telling the truth then.  However, she knows who did do it—­I’ve no doubt of that.  Well, Mrs, Desternay, I can’t subscribe to your original, if rather impossible, suggestions, but I thank you for this interview, and I may say you have helped me.”

“I have?  How?  Not against Eunice?”

“Never mind, ma’am, I must get off by myself, and straighten out my notes, and see where I stand.  Are you going to telephone to Mrs, Embury again?”

“No!” and the little head was tossed proudly.  “If she wants me, let her call me up.  I did my part, now I’ll subside.  And, too —­if she is—­is—­oh, I can’t say it!  But I’ll wait further developments before I decide just where I stand in regard to Eunice Embury!”

CHAPTER XII

IN HANLON’S OFFICE

In an office building, away downtown, a little old lady stood in the lobby studying the great bulletin board of room numbers.