did you write it?" asked the coroner.
"A week or more ago."
"Why did you write it?"
"I refuse to tell."
"Who is the S. mentioned on this paper?"
"I refuse to tell."
"You needn't tell. That is outside the case. It is sufficient for us to know that Miss Van Norman did not write this paper. If you wrote it, it has no bearing on the case. Your penmanship is very like hers."
"I practised to make it so," said Cicely. "Miss Van Norman desired me to do so, that I might answer unimportant notes and sign her name to them. They were in no sense forgeries. Ladies frequently have their own names signed by their secretaries. Miss Van Norman often received notes like that."
"Why did you not tell before that you wrote this paper supposed to have been written by Miss Van Norman?"
"Nobody asked me." Miss Dupuy's tone was defiant and even pert. Robert Fessenden began to look at the girl with increasing interest. He felt quite sure that she knew more about the tragedy than he had suspected. His detective instinct became immediately alert, and he glanced significantly at Kitty French.
She was breathlessly watching Cicely, but nothing could be learned from the girl's inscrutable face, and to an attentive listener her very voice did not ring true.
Doctor Leonard and Doctor Hills looked at each other. Both remembered that the night before, Cicely had stealthily opened the door of the library and put her head in, but seeing them, had quickly gone back again.
This information might or might not be of importance, but after a brief whispered conference, the two men concluded that it was not the time then to refer to it.
Mr. Carleton, though still pale and haggard of face, seemed to have taken on new interest, and listened attentively to the conversation, while big, good-natured Tom Willard leaned forward and took the paper, and then sat studying it, with a perplexed expression.
"But why did you not volunteer the information? You must have known it was of great importance." The coroner spoke almost petulantly, and indeed Miss Dupuy had suppressed important information.
At his question she became greatly embarrassed. She blushed and looked down, and then, with an effort resuming her air of defiance, she snapped out her answer: "I was afraid."
"Afraid of what?"
"Afraid that they would think somebody killed Miss Van Norman, instead of that she killed herself, as she did."
"How do you know she did?"
"I don't know it, except that I left her here alone when I went to my room, and the house was all locked up, and soon after that she was found dead. So she must have killed herself."
"Those conclusions," said the coroner pompously, "are for us to arrive at, not for you to declare. The case," he then said, turning toward the doctors and the young detective, "is entirely changed by the hearing of Miss Dupuy's testimony. The fact that the note was not written by Miss Van Norman, will, I'm sure, remove from the minds of the doctors the possibility of suicide."
"It certainly will," said Doctor Leonard. "I quite agree with Doctor Hills that except for the note all evidence is against the theory of suicide."
"Then," went on Mr. Benson, "if it is not a suicide, Miss Van Norman must have been the victim of foul play, and it is our duty to investigate the matter, and attempt to discover whose hand it was that wielded the fatal dagger."
Mr. Benson was fond of high-sounding words and phrases, and, finding himself in charge of what promised to be a mysterious, if not a celebrated, case, he made the most of his authoritative position.
Robert Fessenden paid little attention to the coroner's speech. His brain was working rapidly, and he was trying to piece together such data as he had already accumulated in the way of evidence. It was but little, to be sure, and in lieu of definite clues he allowed himself to speculate a little on the probabilities. But he realized that he was in the presence of a mysterious murder case, and he was more than willing to do anything he could toward discovering the truth of the matter.
The known facts were so appalling, and any evidence of undiscovered facts was as yet so extremely slight, that Fessenden felt there was a great deal to be done.
He was trying to collect and systematize his own small fund of information when he realized that the audience was being dismissed.
Mr. Benson announced that he would convene a jury and hold an inquest that same afternoon, and then he would expect all those now present to return as witnesses.
Without waiting to learn what the others did, Fessenden turned to Kitty French, and asked her to go with him for a stroll.
"You need fresh air," he said, as they stepped from the veranda; "but, also, I need you to talk to. I can formulate my ideas better if I express then aloud, and you are such a clear-headed and sympathetic listener that it helps a lot."
Kitty smiled with pleasure at the compliment, then her pretty face became grave again as she remembered what must be the subject of their conversation.
"Before I talk to the lawyers or detectives who will doubtless soon infest the house, I want to straighten out my own ideas."
"I don't see how you can have any," said Kitty; "I mean, of course, any definite ideas about who committed the murder."
"I haven't really definite ones, but I want you to help me get some."
"Well," said Kitty, looking provokingly lovely in her serious endeavor to be helpful, "let's sit down here and talk it over."
"Here" was a sort of a rustic arbor, which was a delightful place for a tete-a-tete, but not at all conducive to deep thought or profound conversation.
"Go on," said Kitty, pursing her red lips and puckering her white brow in her determination to supply the help that was required of her.
"But I can't go on, if you look like that! All logic and deduction fly out of my head, and I can think only of poetry and romance. And it won't do! At least, not now. Can't you try to give a more successful imitation of a coroner's jury?" Kitty tried to look stupid and wise, both at once, and only succeeded in looking bewitching.
"It's no use," said Fessenden; "I can't sit facing you, as I would the real thing in the way of juries. So I'll sit beside you, and look at the side of that distant barn, while we talk."
So he turned partly round, and, fixing his gaze on the stolid red barn, said abruptly:
"Who wrote that paper?"
"I don't know," said Kitty, feeling that she couldn't help much here.
"Somehow, I can't seem to believe that Dupuy girl wrote it. She sounded to me like a lady reciting a fabrication."
"I thought that, too," said Kitty. "I never liked Cicely, because I never trusted her. But Maddy was very fond of her, and she wouldn't have been, unless she had found Cicely trustworthy."
"Come to luncheon, you two," said Tom Willard, as he approached the arbor.
"Oh, Mr. Willard," said Kitty, "who do you think wrote that paper?"
"Why, Miss Dupuy," said Tom, in surprise.
"She owned up to it."
"Yes, I know; but I'm not sure she told the truth."
"I don't know why she shouldn't," said Tom, thoughtfully. And then he added gently, "And, after looking at it closely, I felt sure, myself, it wasn't Maddy's writing, after all."
"Then it must be Cicely's," said Kitty. "I admit I can't tell them apart."
And then the three went back to the house.
Chapter IX.
The Will