"You know the doors and windows were all locked?" asked Braye, thoughtfully.
"I looked after them, myself," said Landon. "I always do. After the last one goes upstairs for the night, I invariably look after the locking up. And the house, properly locked, is impregnable. The servants' quarters are shut off and locked; there is absolutely no way of getting in from outside."
"Going back to Jennings' theory," mused Braye, "could we suspect old Thorpe?"
"Not for a minute," declared Landon. "And, too, he wasn't in the hall when they died. No, I'd trust Thorpe as far as I would any of ourselves. But, there's Stebbins. I've never felt sure that he's entirely trustworthy."
"Even so," said Braye, "he wasn't here when--when they died."
"No, he wasn't. I can't see any way he could have arranged things unless he poisoned the cake----"
"Rubbish, Wynne!" cried Eve, "you know we all ate that cake. Do be rational."
"But Mr. Bruce was poisoned, Eve, we can't get away from that."
"Of course he was," broke in Hardwick, "and doubtless Vernie was too, but it was not done by human agency."
"Well, there we go, reasoning round in a circle," murmured Norma; "I think our talk is useless, when we surmise and speculate about it all. Let us decide on our immediate plans. Shall you send Mr. Bruce's body to Chicago, and stay here yourself, Rudolph?"
"Yes, as I look at it now. I can't see anything else to do."
For Doctor Crawford persisted in treating the case as a criminal one, and requested that all concerned remain at Black Aspens for the present, with a hint that unless they did so, the request might become a command.
"Then you think the two people were murdered?" asked Landon of the county physician.
"I don't say that, for sure; but when a man drops dead, and a trace of poison is found in his stomach, it looks mighty like an intention of death on some one's part,--maybe the man himself. There's a show of suicide, you know."
"But Gifford Bruce never would commit suicide!"
"If only those committed suicide who are expected to do so, there'd be mighty few of them. Now, I hold that poison was taken into Mr. Bruce's stomach while he was eating that cake, or whatever he did eat."
"We agree to that," Landon spoke slowly, "but some of us think the poison was put in by supernatural means."