"I'd like to say yes, but I am just starting on a Western trip, and I shall be gone at least a month."
Great crystal tears formed in Natalie's eyes and one rolled down her cheek. She couldn't possibly help this, the teardrops were beyond her control. But they stood her in good stead, for Alan Ford couldn't bear to see a woman cry. It unnerved him as no danger or terror could do.
"But I'm so disappointed! You see Barry Stannard has confessed----"
"What! Young Stannard confessed! Then what do you want of me?"
"Because Barry didn't do it. He confessed to save me."
"And did you do it?" The question was in the tone of a casual every-day inquiry, but few people would have replied anything but the truth with Alan Ford's gaze upon them.
"No, I didn't. You _must_ come up there and find out who did do it. Oh, can't you manage somehow?"
The coaxing face was brightened by a sudden hope, and Alan Ford couldn't bring himself to dash that hope from the lovely beseeching girl.
"It makes a difference, now that they've arrested Stannard," he said, slowly.
"Oh, of course it does! Arrested him wrongfully, too. You see, he had to say he did it, or I would have been arrested."
"Tell me the main facts," said Ford to Bobsy. And in straightforward terms, Bobsy told the great detective all that the force had been able to accomplish.
"It would seem," said Alan Ford, speaking with deliberation, "that the criminal must be one of the four people most nearly connected with the dead man. His wife, Miss Vernon here, Barry, the son, or Mr. Courtenay, the lover."
"I don't like for you to use that term," said Natalie, gently. "For Mr. Courtenay and Mrs. Stannard could not be called lovers during Mr. Stannard's life."
"Good for you, for standing up for her. Well, I will postpone my Western trip for a few days at least."
"He's coming," said Natalie, briefly, as in the late afternoon she arrived at The Folly.
"Who is?" asked Joyce, "and where have you been?"
Joyce and Beatrice were having tea in the Reception Room, for by common consent all the household avoided the Studio.
The servants shuddered as they were obliged to pass it or go through it, and Natalie declared it was haunted.
"I've been to New York," the girl replied, as she flung off her motor coat, and threw herself into a big armchair. "Give me some tea, please, and I'll tell you all about it. I've engaged Alan Ford."