Keefe looked at her, a new thought dawning in his mind.
“That might not be at all a bad plan,” he said, slowly; “are you in earnest?”
“I don’t know. Honestly, I think of so many plans, and discard them one after the other. But I don’t want to be convicted!”
“And you shan’t! There are more persons in this world than the three Wheelers! And one of them may easily be the murderer we’re seeking.”
Next day brought the advent of two men and a boy to Sycamore Ridge.
Samuel Appleby, determined to discover the murderer of his father and convinced that it was none of the Wheeler family, had brought Fleming Stone, the detective, to investigate the case. Stone had a young assistant who always accompanied him, and this lad, Terence McGuire by name, was a lively, irrepressible chap, with red hair and freckles.
But his quick thinking and native wit rendered him invaluable to Stone, who had already hinted that McGuire might some day become his successor.
The Wheeler family, Jeffrey Allen, Curtis Keefe, and Burdon, the local detective, were all gathered in Mr. Wheeler’s den to recount the whole story to Fleming Stone.
With grave attention, Stone listened, and young McGuire eagerly drank in each word, as if committing a lesson to memory. Which, indeed, he was, for Stone depended on his helper to remember all facts, theories and suggestions put forward by the speakers.
Long experience had made Fleming Stone a connoisseur in “cases,” and, by a classification of his own, he divided them into “express” and “local.” By this distinction he meant that in the former cases, he arrived quickly at the solution, without stop or hindrance. The latter kind involved necessary stops, even side issues, and a generally impeded course, by reason of conflicting motives and tangled clues.
As he listened to the story unfolded by the members of the party, he sighed, for he knew this was no lightning express affair. He foresaw much investigation ahead of him, and he already suspected false evidence and perhaps bribed witnesses.
Yet these conclusions of his were based quite as much on intuition as on evidence, and Stone did not wholly trust intuition.
Samuel Appleby was the principal spokesman, as he was the one chiefly concerned in the discovery of the criminal and the avenging of his father’s death. Moreover, he was positive the deed had not been done by any one of the Wheeler family, and he greatly desired to prove himself right in this.