what you were meant to look upon as unaccountable.
âIn the first place: there are more reasons than one for shaking the dust of a place off oneâs feet; and fear of the place is not the commonest reason. Letâs assume that Miss Radford and her rich (and miserly) sister didnât get on.
âIn the second place: though human instinct leads people unreasonably enough to put up material bars against malignant spirits, there are better reasons for fences and watchdogs. Perhaps Miss Radford also had the miser instinct; perhaps she liked to keep some of her wealth in the house with her, where she could look at it.
âShe struggled against being carried into the house on Saturday, after her accident; no wonder! She had just seen what she could only suppose to be the ghost of her dead sister, and she had fainted at the sight; from what you tell me, I think she must have fainted before the buggy went over.â
âYes, the reins were tangled up anyhowâshe had dropped them.â
âOf course she fainted; and when she came to, dazed from shock, she remembered what she had seen, protested against being kept in precincts that she could only think haunted, and fainted again. I donât blame her. But you say she quieted down afterwards?â
âYes.â
âIf she had poisoned Mrs. Hickson, and just seen her avenging ghost, she would have raised the roof, made such a row that Knapp would have had to get her out of there on a stretcher. At any rate, she wouldnât have quieted down and taken a shot of morphia like a lamb, with the powers of darkness, for all she knew, closing in on her. She had seen a ghost, but not an avenging ghost.â
âIâm sure Dr. Knapp had heard the rumor about the a poisoning.â
âAnd Eli has heard it.â
âHas he? He told me there was nothing to be afraid of here but copperheads!â
Gamadge said: âIâd rather youâd met a copperhead.â
âThanâthan the woman in the sunbonnet?â
âYou ran up against something that didnât wait to be hurt or interfered with before it attacked you viciously. If the attic door was open every time you saw the woman, it was the woman who opened it; it could have been closed, it was left open to frighten you. Anybody could have come and gone by those doors and stairways without being seen by you or Maggie, couldnât they?â
âI suppose so.â
âThink it over, and youâll know so; for it must have happened. Out of doors there must be plenty of cover; weâll go down and look.
âNow for the inquiry into Miss Radfordâs own life. She profited by her sisterâs death; who profits by hers?â
âWhy, if she didnât will the money away from them, Mrs. Groby. The Grobys are rich!â
âMrs. Groby, from your account of her, seems to possess a frivolous disposition, and a husband who is short on principle. Miss Radford is said not to have cared much for the Grobys, and when they heard of her accident they did not behave as though they cared much for her. The Grobys had better have effective alibis for Saturday afternoon and the early hours of Sunday morning.â
âThey were having a party.â
âBut when did it begin and end? We may be sure that the sheriff, the captain of state police, and the stateâs attorney of Stratfield are looking into the matter.
âWe have one other faint suggestion as to the character of Alvira Radford, and it helps to keep us out of the realm of the supernatural, and on solid earth. When Gilbert Craye brought you the stuff on Friday afternoon he made a mistake about Miss Radford which interests me very much. At least, you say that he had a talk with you in the course of which you found yourselves at cross-purposes. You thought he was referring to the rumor that Miss Radford had poisoned her sister; but you found that he had never heard the rumor, and was thinking of
C. J. Cherryh
Learning to Kill: Stories
John O'Riley
Brenda Sinclair
Christopher George
Stephen Lloyd Jones
Karl Iagnemma
Celya Bowers
Jill Gregory
Aria Cunningham