Alice picked up the pillbox, shook one out, and put it, with a glass of water, in his hand.
"Don't stew," she said coldly. "It's not disloyal to tell the truth."
"Alice, don't leave me!"
"I think . . ." KiUeen backed toward the door.
"Where are you going? You stay here," Innes commanded. He picked up briskness. "Alice, if you please, at least you can ask Josephine and Mr. Johnson to come up here. If this distresses you so much, remember, I can change my will again."
"I can't stop you from making a will," she said. "Why
can't you put another name in place of mine? Mr. Killeen's, for instance."
Killeen looked startled, and Innes looked stubborn. His hair was mussed, his little mustache out of order. But his eyes shot lightning at her.
"I shall do as I planned. We'll discuss the rest of it later. Please hurry. YouVe delayed this already."
Alice started to leave the room with what meek dignity she could, but she thought of something and turned back.
"You'll stay right here?" she said to Killeen.
AH his bewilderment showed through his mask. "Yes of course."
"He mustn't be left alone."
"I see. I see."
"You'd better stay until Fred comes back," said Alice. "It seems I'm going to have the motive now."
She walked out, leaving their two faces blank with astonishment.
When Fred and Duff came in they found Alice roaming distractedly aroimd the sitting room. "He's signed his will," she annoimced.
"Who's with him?"
"Art ... Mr. Killeen."
"Do they know?"
"Not yet," Alice said. "Look, Fred, I'm sorry, but you're on duty, that is if there is any more guard duty. I can't be."
"Why not?"
"Well, that" she said. "Look at my big expensive motive. Besides, we had a fight. With a witness."
"Are you nuts?" Fred said.
"No. I broke my engagement." She dared him to wonder why.
"Broke the . . . ?"
"May I say, congratulations?" said MacDougal Duff gendy.
Fred said, without smiling, "I hope you'll be very happy."
He marched upstairs without looking back. Alice felt like a child who's been unjustly slapped. She looked around at Mac Duff, whose fine eyes were friendly.
"I've been misunderstood," he said. "It's not a re-boxind, is it?"
Her face cleared. "Oh, no." Then she said, "Oh." Then she blushed. Then she said. "Yes, but how ... ?"
"My dear, I have the advantage of having been at school with the two of you, but that young man who drives for Mr. Whidock is clever enough . .."
"I don't know what you're talking about?" said Alice in a fluster.
"Of course not." Duff was being very placid. "I do that, you know. Speak in riddles every once in a whUe. It builds me up. Forgive me, Alice. Do you still want to know who tried to murder Innes?"
"Of course I do. Mr. Duff, why did you congratulate me?"
"Because I'm old-fashioned," said Duff. "Where are the girls?"
"I don't know." She moved beside him toward the hall. "Did you get any dope at the doctor's?"
"Some, about the past."
"Did it help?"
"It inclines me to wonder," said Duff evasively. "Where shall we find them?"
"In their own rooms, I guess."
"Then let us go to their own rooms. By all means. I want to see them in their lairs. You come along and introduce me. In fact, I want to see their lairs."
"But who are you?" said Alice. She felt suddenly gay.
"I hadn't thought," he said. "Who am I, after all?"
"I haven't the faintest idea. What on earth are you doing here?"
Duff shook his head.
"It won't do," she said.
"I am an historian."
Alice was quick. "Are you interested in old families, by any chance?"
"I dote on them. I'ma friend of yours, too."
"All right. It'll work on Gertrude."
"Well, then where does Gertrude hole up?"
Alice giggled. "She looks as if she lives under a rock," she whispered. "In here. There's a door. I dare you to knock."
"Before we knock," said MacDougal Duff, "let us review our objectives. Now let me see. First, we should like to know where Gertrude was last night and what she knows about where her sisters were. Also we are interested in her sleeves."
"Oh, dear."
"You try the sleeves. After all, she's supposed to be blind. Item two, is she blind? I think you'd better not be surprised at anything I do. Not out loud, anyway."
"I'll be careful."
"But most important, we want to know what Gertrude is. What, from her inside, might impel her to murder? Lines thinks she wants revenge. Fred thinks she wants his money. What does Gertrude want in this world, and how badly?"
"Oh, dear," said Alice.
"And watch the room. Notice. Look around. She lives there if she lives anjrwhere. It may tell us whether or not she can see, and other" things.
"Look sharp, now," said Mac Duff, and he knocked on Gertrude's door.
"Come in," called Gertrude.
Alice opened the door. "Miss Gertrude, this is Alice Brennan. I've brought Mr. Duff to see you. He's a very old friend of mine, a professor of American History, from New York. Staying with Mrs. Innes," she wound up breathlessly. "And he's been so anxious to meet you."
"How do you do, Mr. Duff," said Gertrude in her cool soprano. She inclined her head.
"It's very good of you to see me," said Duff in his quiet voice. "Everywhere I go, I try to talk with members of old and important families. You can understand that, as an historian, I find them fascinating."
Gertrude's face showed a flash of animation.
"Please sit down," she said. "The armchair to the left of my bed, as you are standing. You'll find it comfortable."
Gertrude herself, sat in an ancient rocker, upright, as usual. She wore gray sUk, a grim plain pattern, vastiy unbecoming and marred by a spot or two.
Her room was large and square, almost cubic, it seemed, so high was the ceiling. It was very bare and pain-
fully in order. Her bed wore an old-fashioned white bedspread. The window curtains were white. There was very litde color. Not a great deal of furniture. There were three tables in the big room, and Alice, conning the objects that stood on them, was surprised how few these were. The table near the bed had no lamp. A jug for water and a glass. That was all. The table near the window in the bay had a low bowl with bulbs in it. Narcissus. The table against the wall held a small wooden frame with some yam stretched across it, a device for weaving. It had scarcely been started. There was also a pack of playing cards.
The walls were perfectly bare. There were no pictures, but the conventional mirror was attached to the dresser. There were no books in the room. In the comer stood an old-fashioned phonograph with a crank. No radio. Alice wondered about that. But the radio was the voice of the brawling, tumultuous world; and this bare orderly room was Gertmde's, into which the tumult did not penetrate. Alice thought: I wonder if it gets into her mind. I wonder if she knows there is a war.
It was a sad room, somehow, and Alice looked with some pity at the woman's face.
That all-over straw-colored effect, she thought, would vanish with a little rouge and a lick or two with an eyebrow pencil. But of course not, although, peering closer, Alice thought she detected a streak of face powder. Straw-colored face powder, she supposed to herself, with an inner smUe.
Gertrude was speaking, "My father's forebears come from New England. My mother was of old southem stock, although of a branch that migrated north and west."
She knew her stuff, thought Alice. The delicate disdain with which Gertrude skirted sheer boasting alienated her agam.
Duff knew his stuff, too. He rounded out her picture with knowing murmurs. Through the room paraded the past, full of gallant and blue-blooded people.
Alice got up and tiptoed toward the closet door, which luckily stood open a crack. CJertrnde's sightless face was toward her. She felt conspicuous and exposed. The door swung easily as she touched it. Gertrude's dresses hung in