"That's just what I can't do. You see, we all hesitate to say anything that will seem to accuse either of us. Mrs. Faulkner, I can see plainly, is uncertain whether to suspect Joyce or me. She is convinced, of course, that it must have been one of us, but she pretends to think it was a burglar." "She is fond of you both?" "Yes, she adores Joyce, and she is most friendly to me. I've only known her since I've been here, but she seems to believe in me, somehow. She understands perfectly, that Mr. Stannard meant just what I say he did, by those words. She knows how he acted toward me, and how Joyce felt about it." "Then she suspects Mrs. Stannard?" "She doesn't say so. She sticks to the safe theory of an intruder. You can't blame her. None of us can suspect Joyce. It's too absurd." "And Barry Stannard, what does he think?" "Oh, he vows it was an intruder. He's thought up a dozen ways for him to get in and out." "All equally impossible?" "I suppose so. Unless,--I hate to say it,--but mightn't Blake have let him out?" "Not unless it was somebody known to the household." "Well?" said Natalie Vernon. VIII The Emeralds "You mean?" prompted Bobsy. "Oh, nothing. But,--just supposing, you know. I'm sure I don't want to mention Mr. Truxton or Mr. Wadsworth, but they were both here----" "Absurd! Why, Mr. Wadsworth was with Mrs. Faulkner in the Drawing Room----" "Yes, I know. But he came down and went out the door alone, leaving her up there. Now, if he had wanted to, and if he had fixed it up with Blake, couldn't he have gone into the studio, stolen the jewels and killed Eric, and then turned off the light and fled, Blake letting him out the front door?" "But why would Mr. Wadsworth do that?" "Why would anybody? I'm only showing you that there _are_ theories that don't include me or Joyce." "But not tenable theories. Mr. Wadsworth, I've been told, was having a--a romantic tête-à-tête with Mrs. Faulkner." "Yes, he was asking her, for the 'steenth time, to marry him. But she turned him down again." "Well, even if she did, probably he didn't give up all hope. And a man, just from a session of that sort, isn't going to commit a crime." "Oh, well, of course, it wasn't Mr. Wadsworth. But why not consider Mr. Truxton? He's a jewel sharp, too." "We have considered him. But he and his wife went home earlier----" "He could have come back,----"