do you feel sure now that my sister has told you the truth?"
"I must admit the way that she talked to me just now was very convincing. She seemed so entirely herself and so sure of her memory, that I feel I have no reasonable grounds to doubt her assertions."
"And you must not doubt them," said Edith Whiting, earnestly; "I'm sure Milly told you the truth, and I think you will find that out for yourself sooner or later. Will you tell me, Mr. King, why you have—why anybody has a suspicious attitude toward my sister? It seems to me that Milly is one to be avenged, almost as much as Philip. Whoever murdered him, attempted to murder her. Why, then, is his a sainted memory, and my sister talked about and looked at with doubt and uncertainty?"
"Since you ask, Mrs. Whiting, I will admit frankly that there is as yet a mystery about it all. I'd rather not discuss it with you, but, as you know, Miss Leslie is of a volatile, even erratic nature, and—"
"I know what you're going to say," said Edith sadly; "that as Milly was found with a pistol in her hand, there is a doubt as to the truth of any of her stories! No, don't interrupt me, Mr. King,—I quite understand; and I want you to go ahead with your investigations, and find the murderer as soon as you can. It will not prove to be my sister! but the only way she can be vindicated, is to bring the real criminal to justice and prove the truth of her stories. I don't care if you did see that inkstand on the table, I am perfectly positive, after what she said this morning, that she did throw it at the man who came in at the window, exactly as she says she did! And you will yet believe this, too!"
She went away then, but she had left me something to think about; and she had made me more than ever determined to solve the mystery of the inkstand and the bronze horse before going any further.
Chapter XIII.
The Mysterious Missiles
I went in search of some of the servants and learned from them two important facts: first, that the library had not been swept since Monday night, although it had been dusted; second, that the maid who dusted it distinctly remembered seeing the bronze paper-weight in its usual place, and also asserted that the large inkstand was undisturbed, and that it did not need refilling.
With this new knowledge, or, rather, with this corroboration of previously attested statements, I went to the library, determined to discover something, if I had to remain there all day.
First I looked at the bronze horse as it stood in its place on the library table. This table, which was really a flat-topped desk, was covered with books, writing implements and bric-a-brac of various kinds.
The bronze horse was one of a half dozen different paper-weights, and was a beautiful specimen of its kind. I picked it up and gazed at it intently, wishing it could speak for itself and solve the mystery. As I stared at it I suddenly noticed that one ear was broken off.
It was a very small bit that was missing; indeed, scarcely enough to impair the beauty or value of the ornament; but if that missing ear could be found on the library floor, it would be a pretty fair proof that Mildred had thrown the horse in the way she had described.
Eagerly I went in search of the maid whose duty it was to dust the library. In response to my questions she told me that the horse had belonged to Mr. Philip; that it was one of his favorite possessions; and that it was comparatively new.
She had noticed the day before that the horse's ear was broken. She could not say positively, but she thought that if it had been broken before that, she would have known it.
Excited at the prospect of something like a real clue at last, I returned to the library and began a systematic search for the missing ear. Getting down on my hands and knees in the space between the desk and the window, I searched, inch by inch, the thick Persian rug and was finally rewarded by discovering the tiny piece of bronze that I was hunting for.
Comparing it with the other ear—indeed, fitting it to the very place from which it was broken—I saw there was no doubt that I had succeeded; and though I could not imagine how the horse had been replaced on the table, I could no longer doubt the truth of Mildred's assertion regarding it.
Carefully wrapping the broken ear in a bit of tissue paper, I put it away and devoted my attention to the inkstand.
The large and elaborate affair stood in the center of the table. The inkwell itself was of heavy cut glass, and was mounted on an ornate silver standard which was also a penrack.
The longer I looked at it the more I felt convinced that nobody could disturb the ponderous ornament and restore it again to its place in the way Mildred told of. For it held as much as a small cupful of jet black ink, and even though the Persian rug was of an intricate design in small figures, yet it was light enough in its general coloring to make ink spots perceptible.
Helpless in the face of this assurance, my eye wandered aimlessly over the articles on the desk, when toward the right-hand end and not far from the bronze horse I spied a second inkstand.
It was heavy, but not so large as the other, and had no silver standard. I opened it and looked in, and found it to be nearly half-full of red ink.
I looked again at the rug. The predominating color was red in varying shades. Instantly the thought struck me that if Mildred had thrown that inkstand and if there had not been much ink in it, the drops on the carpet would be unobservable because of the similarity of color.
Without stopping to inquire how it could be restored intact to its place, I dropped again to my knees, and again searched for traces. The pattern of the rug being so complicated and mosaic-like, it was almost impossible to discover red spots other than those which belonged there; but at last, I thought I did find on a small white figure red blotches that were not of the Persian dye.
Almost trembling with excitement, I procured from a drawer in the desk a fresh white blotter. Moistening this, I placed it on the doubtful red spots and gently pressed it. Then lifting it, I found that it showed dull red blurs which had every appearance of being red ink.
Reserving further experiments of this nature to be done in the presence of witnesses, I went in search of Mr. Hunt. He had not yet arrived, so I telephoned him to come as soon as he could. Meanwhile, I returned to the library to think over my discoveries.
I admitted to myself that they gave us no enlightenment whatever, but they had proved the truth of the only doubtful parts of Mildred's story, and left us therefore no excuse for not believing her entire statement.
Hunt soon arrived, and was more than pleased at what I had done.
"I knew you had ingenuity," he said, in his honest, generous way. "Now, I don't believe I should ever have thought of that blotting-paper scheme."
"But what good does it do?" said I. "Granting that she did throw them, how did they get back to the table?"
"That is another part of the problem," said Hunt, "and one which we need not consider at this moment. First, I think, if you have any more of those clean white blotters, we'll find out the route traveled by that inkstand."
I found plenty of blotters in the drawer, and, proceeding with great care, we succeeded in getting a blotting-paper impression of many more red-ink spots.
We proved to Mr. Hunt's satisfaction, and to mine, that the inkstand had reached the floor about midway between the desk and the window, and that it had then rolled toward the couch, and had stopped just under the long upholstery fringe which decorated the edge of the couch, and which reached to the floor.
"That gives a ray of light!" exclaimed Hunt, triumphantly.
"What do you mean by that?" said I wondering, for I could see no indication of light.
"I can't tell you now," said Hunt, "for some one is coming. I think, Mr. King, it will be wiser to keep these discoveries quiet for the present. Indeed, it is imperative that we should do so."
And