The Cases of Susan Dare by Mignon G. Eberhart

had married and had their own children—but I didn’t understand how—how violent—” the word stopped in his throat, and he coughed and went on—“how strongly they felt—”
    “Who?”
    “Why, Aunt Jessica, of course. And Aunt Marie. And Aunt Caroline.”
    “Too many aunts,” said Susan dryly. “What was it they were violent about?”
    “The house. And each other. And—and other things. Oh, I’ve always known, but it was all—hidden, you know. The surface was—all right.”
    Susan groped through the fog. The surface was all right, he’d said. But the fog parted for a rather sickening instant and gave her an ugly glimpse of an abyss below.
    “Why was Caroline afraid?” said Susan.
    “Caroline ?” he said, staring at her. “ Afraid !” His blue eyes were brilliant with anxiety and excitement. “See here,” he said, “if you think it was Caroline who killed Marie, it wasn’t. She couldn’t. She’d never have dared. I m-mean—” he was stammering in his excitement—“I mean, Caroline wouldn’t hurt a fly. And Caroline wouldn’t have opposed Marie about anything. Marie—you don’t know what Marie was like.”
    “Exactly what happened in the upstairs hall?”
    “You mean—when the shot—”
    “Yes.”
    “Why, I—I was in my room—no, not quite—I was nearly at the door. And I heard the shot. And it’s queer, but I believe—I believe I knew right away that it was a revolver shot. It was as if I had expected—” he checked himself. “But I hadn’t expected—I—” he stopped; dug his fists desperately into his pockets and was suddenly firm and controlled—“but I hadn’t actually expected it, you understand.”
    “Then when you heard the shot you turned, I suppose, and looked.”
    “Yes. Yes, I think so. Anyway, there was Caroline in the hall, too. I think she was screaming. We were both running. I thought of Marie—I don’t know why. But Caroline clutched at me and held me. She didn’t want me to go into Marie’s room. She was terrified. And then I think you were there and Jessica. Were you?”
    “Yes. And there was no one else in the hall? No one came from Marie’s room?”
    His face was perplexed, terribly puzzled.
    “Nobody.”
    “Except—Caroline?”
    “But I tell you it couldn’t have been Caroline.”
    The doorbell began to ring—shrill sharp peals that stabbed the shadows and the thickness of the house.
    “It’s the police,” thought Susan, catching her breath sharply. The boy beside her had straightened and was staring at the wide old door that must be opened.
    Behind them on the padded stairway something rustled. “It’s the police,” said Jessica harshly. “Let them in.”
    Susan had not realized that there would be so many of them. Or that they would do so much. Or that an inquiry could last so long. She had not realized either how amazingly thorough they were with their photographs and their fingerprinting and their practised and rapid and incredibly searching investigation. She was a little shocked and more than a little awed, sheerly from witnessing at first hand and with her own eyes what police actually did when there was murder.
    Yet her own interview with Lieutenant Mohrn was not difficult. He was brisk, youthful, kind, and Jim Byrne was there to explain her presence. She had been very thankful to see Jim Byrne, who arrived on the heels of the police.
    “Tell the police everything you know,” he had said.
    “But I don’t know anything.”
    And it was Lieutenant Mohrn who, oddly enough, brought Susan into the very center and hub of the whole affair.
    But that was later—much later. After endless inquiry, endless search, endless repetitions, endless conferences. Endless waiting in the gloomy dining room with portraits of dead and vanished Wrays staring fixedly down upon policemen. Upon Susan. Upon servants whose alibis had, Jim had informed her, been immediately and completely established.
    It was close to one o’clock when Jim