we don’t want coffee, Sproot,” Markham told him brusquely. “But please be good enough to ask Miss Sibella if she will come here.”
“Very good, sir.”
The old man shuffled away, and a few minutes later Sibella strolled in, smoking a cigarette, one hand in the pocket of her vivid-green sweater-jacket. Despite her air of nonchalance her face was pale, its whiteness contrasting strongly with the deep crimson rouge on her lips. Her eyes, too, were slightly haggard; and when she spoke her voice sounded forced, as if she were playing a rôle against which her spirit was at odds. She greeted us blithely enough, however.
“Good morning, one and all. Beastly auspices for a social call.” She sat down on the arm of a chair and swung one leg restlessly. “Some one certainly has a grudge against us Greenes. Poor old Chet! He didn’t even die with his boots on. Felt bedroom slippers! What an end for an outdoor enthusiast!—Well, I suppose I’m invited here to tell my story. Where do I begin?” She rose, and throwing her half-burned cigarette into the grate, seated herself in a straight-backed chair facing Markham, folding her sinewy, tapering hands on the table before her.
Markham studied her for several moments.
“You were awake last night, reading in bed, I understand, when the shot was fired in your brother’s room.”
“Zola’s ‘Nana,’ to be explicit. Mother told me I shouldn’t read it; so I got it at once. It was frightfully disappointing, though.”
“And just what did you do after you heard the report?” continued Markham, striving to control his annoyance at the girl’s flippancy.
“I put my book down, got up, donned a kimono, and listened for several minutes at the door. Not hearing anything further, I peeked out. The hall was dark, and the silence felt a bit spooky. I knew I ought to go to Chet’s room and inquire, in a sisterly fashion, about the explosion; but, to tell you the truth, Mr. Markham, I was rather cowardly. So I went—oh, well, let the truth prevail: I ran up the servants’ stairs and routed out our Admirable Crichton; and together we investigated. Chet’s door was unlocked, and the fearless Sproot opened it. There sat Chet, looking as if he’d seen a ghost; and somehow I knew he was dead. Sproot went in and touched him, while I waited; and then we went down to the dining-room. Sproot did some phoning, and afterward made me some atrocious coffee. A half-hour or so later this gentleman”—she inclined her head toward Heath—“arrived, looking distressingly glum, and very sensibly refused a cup of Sproot’s coffee.”
“And you heard no sound of any kind before the shot?”
“Not a thing. Everybody had gone to bed early. The last sound I heard in this house was mother’s gentle and affectionate voice telling the nurse she was as neglectful as the rest of us, and to bring her morning tea at nine sharp, and not to slam the door the way she always did. Then peace and quiet reigned until half past eleven, when I heard the shot in Chet’s room.”
“How long was this interregnum of quietude?” asked Vance.
“Well, mother generally ends her daily criticism of the family around ten-thirty; so I’d say the quietude lasted about an hour.”
“And during that time you do not recall hearing a slight shuffling sound in the hall? Or a door closing softly?”
The girl shook her head indifferently, and took another cigarette from a small amber case she carried in her sweater-pocket.
“Sorry, but I didn’t. That doesn’t mean, though, that people couldn’t have been shuffling and shutting doors all over the place. My room’s at the rear, and the noises on the river and in 52d Street drown out almost anything that’s going on in the front of the house.”
Vance had gone to her and held a match to her cigarette.
“I say, you don’t seem in the least worried.”
“Oh, why worry?” She made a gesture of resignation. “If anything is to happen to me, it’ll happen, whatever I do. But I don’t anticipate an immediate demise. No one has the slightest reason for killing me—unless, of course, it’s some of my former bridge partners. But they’re all harmless persons who wouldn’t be apt to take extreme measures.”
“Still”—Vance kept his tone inconsequential—“no one apparently had any reason for harming your two sisters or your brother.”
“On that point I couldn’t be altogether lucid. We Greenes don’t confide in one another. There’s a beastly spirit of distrust in this ancestral domain. We all lie to each other on general principles. And as for secrets! Each member of the family is a kind of Masonic Order in himself. Surely there’s some reason for all these shootings. I simply can’t imagine any one indulging himself in this fashion for the mere purpose of pistol practice.”
She smoked a moment pensively, and went on:
“Yes, there must be a motive back of it all—though for the life of me I can’t suggest one. Of course Julia was a vinegary, unpleasant person, but she went out very little, and worked off her various complexes on the family. And yet, she may have been leading a double life for all I know. When these sour old maids break loose from their inhibitions I understand they do the most utterly utter things. But I just can’t bring my mind to picture Julia with a bevy of jealous Romeos.” She made a comical grimace at the thought. “Ada, on the other hand, is what we used to call in algebra an unknown quantity. No one but dad knew where she came from, and he would never tell. To be sure, she doesn’t get much time to run around—mother keeps her too busy. But she’s young and good-looking in a common sort of way”—there was a tinge of venom in this remark—“and you can’t tell what connections she may have formed outside the sacred portals of the Greene mansion.—As for Chet, no one seemed to love him passionately. I never heard anybody say a good word for him but the golf pro at the club, and that was only because Chet tipped him like a parvenu. He had a genius for antagonizing people. Several motives for the shooting might be found in his past.”
“I note that you’ve changed your ideas considerably in regard to the culpability of Miss Ada.” Vance spoke incuriously.
Sibella looked a little shamefaced.
“I did get a bit excited, didn’t I?” Then a defiance came into her voice. “But just the same, she doesn’t belong here. And she’s a sneaky little cat. She’d dearly love to see us all nicely murdered. The only person that seems to like her is cook; but then, Gertrude’s a sentimental German who likes everybody. She feeds half the stray cats and dogs in the neighborhood. Our rear yard is a regular pound in summer.”
Vance was silent for a while. Suddenly he looked up.
“I gather from your remarks, Miss Greene, that you now regard the shootings as the acts of some one from the outside.”
“Does any one think anything else?” she asked, with startled anxiety. “I understand there were footprints in the snow both times we were visited. Surely they would indicate an outsider.”
“Quite true,” Vance assured her, a bit overemphatically, obviously striving to allay whatever fears his queries may have aroused in her. “Those footprints undeniably indicate that the intruder entered each time by the front door.”
“And you are not to have any uneasiness about the future, Miss Greene,” added Markham. “I shall give orders to-day to have a strict guard placed over the house, front and rear, until there is no longer the slightest danger of a recurrence of what has taken place here.”
Heath nodded his unqualified approbation.
“I’ll arrange for that, sir. There’ll be two men guarding this place day and night from now on.”
“How positively thrilling!” exclaimed Sibella; but I noticed a strange reservation of apprehension in her eyes.
“We won’t detain you any longer, Miss Greene,” said Markham, rising. “But I’d greatly appreciate it if you would remain in your room until our inquiries here are over. You may, of