Evidence of Things Seen by Elizabeth Daly

what you were meant to look upon as unaccountable.
    â€œIn the first place: there are more reasons than one for shaking the dust of a place off one’s feet; and fear of the place is not the commonest reason. Let’s assume that Miss Radford and her rich (and miserly) sister didn’t get on.
    â€œIn 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.
    â€œShe 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€œYes, the reins were tangled up anyhow—she had dropped them.”
    â€œOf 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 don’t blame her. But you say she quieted down afterwards?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œIf 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 wouldn’t 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€œI’m sure Dr. Knapp had heard the rumor about the a poisoning.”
    â€œAnd Eli has heard it.”
    â€œHas he? He told me there was nothing to be afraid of here but copperheads!”
    Gamadge said: “I’d rather you’d met a copperhead.”
    â€œThan—than the woman in the sunbonnet?”
    â€œYou ran up against something that didn’t 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, couldn’t they?”
    â€œI suppose so.”
    â€œThink it over, and you’ll know so; for it must have happened. Out of doors there must be plenty of cover; we’ll go down and look.
    â€œNow for the inquiry into Miss Radford’s own life. She profited by her sister’s death; who profits by hers?”
    â€œWhy, if she didn’t will the money away from them, Mrs. Groby. The Grobys are rich!”
    â€œMrs. 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€œThey were having a party.”
    â€œBut when did it begin and end? We may be sure that the sheriff, the captain of state police, and the state’s attorney of Stratfield are looking into the matter.
    â€œWe 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