Sheriff Hegg was looking at him queerly. “I’ll make him talk. You say his name’s Muroc?”
“Yes.”
The sheriff opened the door and called into the room, “Hey! Is your name Muroc?” And to Flash, “Where can I talk to this fellow in private?”
“The music room across the hall.”
The sheriff strode into the sitting room and said to Mr. Muroc, “Come with me.”
Harry Muroc arose and followed him out into the hall. Flash remained in the study. He had no faith in Alonzo Hegg’s hair-trigger methods. Unless he was mistaken, Alonzo Hegg would promptly arrest Lotus Africa, and perhaps Cheseldine, as an accomplice.
Left alone, Flash resumed his investigation of the dead man. He came upon another puzzling discovery. Benjamin Africa’s fingernails were black. Less than an hour previously, Flash had particularly noticed how clean and well-cared for these nails were.
Flash took out and opened his pocket knife. His first supposition was that the black under the nails was dried blood. The point of the knife proved that it was not dried blood, but soot.
Benjamin Africa had left Flash in the north drawing room to get a gold necklace which he had bought as a gift for his wife. In the subsequent few minutes, he had been murdered. How had he acquired this soot under his fingernails?
Flash went through his pockets. The necklace was not upon the person of the dead man. Perhaps he had not had time to secure the necklace. Perhaps it was still in the desk. Flash went through the desk drawers carefully, thoroughly. The necklace was not there.
He next examined the fireplace, on the supposition that Benjamin Africa, in his death struggles, had scraped the soot under his fingernails there.
The side walls of the fireplace were free of soot — burned clean and bright by flames. Only the back wall was sooted. Flash searched it carefully, but found no evidences of scratches of any kind.
Sheriff Hegg had brusquely ordered Mr. Muroc across the hall and into the music room. But when the door was closed behind them, and when the sheriff had made sure that they had the room to themselves, his air of official brusqueness vanished.
He said, belligerently, “Muroc, what the hell’s been going on here?”
And the gentleman from New York answered lightly, “There seems to have been a murder, Sheriff.”
“What do you know about it?”
“Not a thing.”
“Now, look here,” the sheriff blustered. “This is murder. This man Africa was a prominent citizen — a millionaire. Important old family. The papers are going to raise a stink about it. And you’re going to get involved. If you have anything to say, you’d better say it.”
“What shall I say?” Muroc asked with his sardonic smile.
“Did you kill him?”
“Suppose I said yes?”
“Then you’re on one hell of a spot.”
“I disagree with you, Sheriff. I have a perfect alibi. Have you forgotten that I have a perfect alibi?”
“You can’t get away with that, Muroc,” the sheriff said angrily. “And it’s a lie. You were here in plenty of time to kill Benjamin Africa!”
“If it comes to an issue, however,” Muroc said coldly, “you’ll furnish me with an alibi. And you’re overlooking a point. It’s up to you to see that I’m not involved. If a charge of murder was pressed against me, you would lose an income that would make you independently wealthy in a very few years. I’m going to help you, but you’ll have to do as I say.”
“You’re admitting that you murdered him!”
The small black eyes studied him. “Sheriff, let’s not be emotional. Let’s use the brains God gave us. Let’s ask ourselves,” he said sarcastically, as if he were addressing a very young, very stupid child, “who is the most likely suspect? Lotus Africa!”
“Yeah,” the sheriff growled. “You planted that hairpin of hers on the old man!”
Muroc raised his thin black brows into twin arches. “The public,” he said, “is going to think she killed the old man so that she and this poor slob Cheseldine could run off — and spend the Africa millions. That’s what Miss Minetta thinks. Whatever you think, or whatever I think, the Chink girl is going to be the fall guy. You found the hairpin. You’ve got your story. Stick to it!”
The sheriff was pacing up and down, clasping and unclasping his hands. He looked worried.
“Okay, okay!” he exploded at last. “But what about Horton? He’s dangerous!”
Muroc’s hard mouth spread in a wolfish grin. A deep, strange light appeared in his little eyes.
“Don’t you worry about Mr. Horton,” he said softly.
Chapter IX
“I Know She Killed Him”
Flash had finished his inspection of the fireplace when he heard the sheriff’s voice from the sitting room.
“Dan, we’re all ready. Let’s get down to business.”
Flash got up from his knees and went into the sitting room.
Lotus Africa had not yet come in, but everyone else was there. Cheseldine stood with his back to the window. Miss Minetta still sat in the rocking chair, with hands folded, staring implacably at the opposite wall. Bernice Hopper, pale and big-eyed, now stood behind her aunt’s chair with her hands on the back of it.
Harry Muroc was seated nearby, cleaning his fingernails with a gold-backed pocketknife.
Near the door, in a small, nervous group, were the servants: a horse-faced butler, an enormously fat, tall black woman, and a young woman dressed in black with a tiny white apron.
Sheriff Hegg looked importantly about the room. He said impatiently, “Where’s Mrs. Africa?”
There was a gleam of living red at the door and the Eurasian girl came in. Flash studied her sharply. There were no tears or trace of recent tears in her beautiful gem-like eyes. Once again, he was impressed by the unfathomable mystery, the bizarre, slender beauty of this girl.
She entered the room and walked to where Flash was standing. She stopped beside him and waited.
Sheriff Hegg clasped his hands behind him and jutted out his lower lip.
“You Mrs. Africa?” he barked.
“Yes.”
He looked at her shrewdly. He ran his little piggy eyes slowly from her face down the slim, graceful lines of her slender figure.
He said, in an oratorical voice, “Now, ladies and gentlemen, there is absolutely no question that right here in this very room is the man or the woman who killed Benjamin Africa. First of all, I’ll hear from any of you who have an opinion. How about you, Miss Minetta?”
Flash observed that Minetta Africa, thin-lipped, with spots of hectic color burning on her cheekbones, was sending malignant glances at the Eurasian girl.
“My brother,” the spinster said slowly, “knew that he was going to be killed. You’ve doubtless heard about the Africa tradition. When a man of our family is about to die, blood is always seen under the portrait of our ancestor. My brother saw a ghostly figure there last night — and found fresh blood!”
The Eurasian said softly, “My husband said nothing about it to me.”
“There were a great many things,” her sister-in-law coldly stated, “that he didn’t tell you.”
The Eurasian’s large, brilliant dark eyes studied Minetta Africa a moment, then she said, quietly, “I do not believe that a ghost killed my husband.”
The spinster licked her lips. She shot a look of venomous hatred at the girl in red. In her harsh, frigid voice, she said, slowly, “Sheriff, that woman standing there killed my brother!”
Miss Hopper uttered a small shriek. Flash watched Lotus Africa. And once again he was amazed at her poise, her perfect calm. Not a muscle in her face twitched.