"Who are you?" she whispered.
The reporter smiled. "I was just going to ask that question of you."
"Who are you?" she repeated tensely. "What are you doing here?"
"My name is John Suggs, and I happen temporarily to be a wage slave of the Evening Star. You see," he said, with a careless wave of his free hand, "I was at the district police station when the news of Mr. Guerney's murder arrived—"
"Murder!" whispered the girl, her hand going to her breast. "Murder! I–I thought the papers said it was suicide—"
"So the police thought at first," Johnny sighed. "They are shockingly unobservant. But I found that he had been murdered. Did you do it?"
He took a sudden step forward, and pointed his finger at her accusingly. If he had expected her to show fright or fear he was disappointed. The girl straightened up, and a hot color flamed in her cheeks.
"I?" she cried. "You are insane. I am Mildred Guerney — Strickland Guerney's daughter!"
Johnny laughed. "My dear young lady, please — if you had merely stated that you knew nothing of this affair I should have been inclined to believe you. But it seems to be a pretty well known fact that Mr. Guerney was a bachelor, and has no relatives except a nephew — J. Sylvester Jones."
"It's a lie — a lie! My mother was the daughter of a British resident among the Dayaks in Borneo. Mr. Guerney came there on a hunting expedition, and married her. They lived together for ten years — then he deserted her. Mother never gave up the search for him. She died in Singapore a year ago — and she urged me to keep seeking him. I traced him to this city. Two days ago I met old Bradley, who had cared for me when I was a child in Borneo. He promised to help—"
"And so Bradley took an impression-of the lock, and had that key made for you?" said Johnny, with a rare flash of inspiration.
"Oh!" She shrank against the door's age-blackened panels.
"Didn't he?"
A tear stole from under her lowered lashes. "Y-yes."
The reporter took her hand gently. "My dear Miss Guerney," he said, "please don't think I'm utterly heartless. It is my business to find out who committed this crime. I don't think you did — I know you didn't. No one in their right senses could look at you for a moment and believe you guilty of a cold blooded murder — even of such an old reprobate as Guerney seemed to be."
"I–I really didn't," she said brokenly.
"But, don't you see that, circumstantially, the case looks rather black against you? Personally, I don't believe in circumstantial evidence. I wouldn't convict a cat on it even if pussy still had the cream on her whiskers. Courts of law and juries look on those things differently. As the matter stands, you had a motive in seeking revenge — you are the only other person besides Mr. Guerney — to our knowledge, at least — who had a key to this door. Please don't cry. Can't you see that I'm trying to help you — to find a method of defense? Have you any idea who might-have killed your — your father?"
She hesitated.
"Tell me," Suggs urged, "even if you have only the barest suspicion. We must get to the bottom of this matter."
"J-Jones," she said.
"Jones? I checked him over every minute of time from noon until six o'clock, which covers the period in which Mr. Guerney was last known to be alive, and the moment the police arrived here. What makes you think he is guilty?"
By this time Mildred Guerney had entirely regained control of herself. Johnny admired her for that. The position in which she found herself would have developed more than incipient hysteria in most girls. He could see that the marvelously white hand that held the key was steady once more Her voice, when she answered, was clear and low.
"I am making no accusations, Mr Suggs. I do not know Mr. Jones personally. But I did learn how he ingratiated himself with my father, so much so that he was named in the will as the sole heir. From all accounts, he is a typical man about town — a selfish, pleasure-seeking idler. He lives at the St. Regis, owns a limousine, has a chauffeur — yet he is desperately in debt and his bank balance is less than a hundred ' dollars. Certainly that would seem to indicate that he would have an interest in my father's death."
"From whom did you learn all this?"
"From Bradley." she said defiantly.
"I see," mused Johnny. "Yes. that would be a motive. If he did do it — Now, Miss Guerney, there is just one other thing that I want to ask you, if I may."
"What is that?"
"Why are you here tonight?"
"I am looking for the will. Jones has no right to that money; he will only squander it in the cabarets, anyway. My mother's people are desperately poor. They have been good to me, and I intend seeing that they are made comfortable with my father's money. I don't care anything about it for myself. I am young, and can work—" She threw out her beautiful arms in a gesture of defiance.
Johnny took the key from her. "Well, we might as well go in the study. You may find what you want — and so may I."
He fitted the key in the lock — and found the door unlocked! It was pitch dark in there — a velvety sort of blackness that one could almost feel. Suggs turned his flash on the walls, and located the electric switch. This time, when he turned it on, there was no gush of light, but the lamp on the study table winked into being.
Then Mildred Guerney screamed; a blood chilling sound in that great, dark house. Johnny sprang to her side, his eyes following the pointing line of her finger.
A man lay face down on the carpet. His clothes were of the latest cut, though crumpled and torn in places. A dark wet "spot shone on the carpet by his chest.
Suggs knelt, turned him over, and looked into the dead, staring eyes of J. Sylvester Jones!
Chapter III
When John Suggs reached home that night — or morning, rather, as it was verging on four o'clock — he sat down at his desk, with paper and pen, and summed up the evidence against the three suspects:
First: J. Sylvester Jones. He had a motive, as he was reported to be the sole heir of Strickland Guerney's wealth. On the other hand he lived at the most expensive hotel in the city, and seemed to have considerable money, despite his lack of a balance at the bank. There was no real evidence against him.
Second: Bradley, the butler. There was no definite motive, though he might have committed the crime for Mildred Guerney's sake. The strongest link connecting him with the murder was the fact that he was the only known person in the house at the time of Guerney's death. The fact that he openly admitted this, when he might have easily gone out and established an alibi, was a point in his favor.
Third: Mildred Guerney. Her motive could have been revenge, though she was not of a type likely to harbor that sentiment. According to her story, however, she had ample cause to hate the old millionaire. The fact that she possessed a key to the study door was certainly a damning bit of evidence against her—
When he reached that point Suggs tore up the paper in disgust. He had searched every inch of the study without finding a single clue that would aid him. If Jones had killed Guerney, who, in turn, had killed Jones? If he had not, who had?
After finding the body of Jones in the Guerney study, and failing to locate a scrap of evidence that would incriminate the killer of Guerney or of Jones, Johnny had taken Mildred away from the house of death. She had not found her father's will, so both were in a despondent frame of mind. The girl was staying at a modest little hotel uptown, and she promised to telephone the reporter if anything of importance occurred.