“Her maid!” Bates interrupted, speaking with a desperate haste, as if afraid Wise would say some other word. “No,” said Wise. “Her daughter.” “You lie!” Bates cried, and Zizi, her face white and drawn, said “Oh, Penny, she _couldn’t_!” “Couldn’t strike the blow, maybe, but she helped her mother, and did it by keeping watch. She was seen in the hall with a scarf over her head.” CHAPTER XVI Testimony “It’s inconceivable, it’s impossible, it’s incredible!” Richard Bates declared. “I’ll never believe it! Mrs Everett, even if she had the will, could never accomplish such a deed!” “But that Kate person could,” Zizi suggested, and Bates turned to her. “But Mr Wise doesn’t accuse the maid,—he accuses the daughter! A gentle, innocent young girl——” “Now, wait a minute,” put in Wise; “I don’t say the daughter was at fault,—she might have been a tool without knowing it. I mean, she may have kept watch for her mother——” “What do you mean,—kept watch? Miss Everett is not a numskull to be told to ‘keep watch’ and blindly obey.” “Nor is Mrs Everett ninny enough to expect that,” Wise returned. “But the lady is clever enough to persuade her daughter to keep a lookout on some plausible pretense——” “But I don’t understand,” Bates persisted; “just how do you reconstruct the crime,—on that theory?” “Why, say Mrs Everett was in waiting, till Binney should come in——” “Where was she?” Bates demanded. “Perhaps behind one of the big pillars in the onyx lobby,—a dozen people could hide behind them——” “Rubbish! But go on.” “Well, say she hid there with the knife, which she had procured from Binney earlier,—he admired her, you know——” “He admired every pretty woman. Go on.” “And then, when Vail came in, and Moore took him up, the coast was clear, and just then Binney happened in——” “Strange that he should happen in just then!” “Well, but he _did_, didn’t he? He _had_ to, didn’t he, to get there at all? You don’t think he was hiding there _waiting_ to be killed, do you? Well, then Binney came in, and the lady,—or her maid, Kate,—stepped out and stabbed him, and then ran up the stairs,—and in the halls Miss Everett was watching to see that there was no one looking on. She need not have known what her mother was up to,—but—she was seen in the halls that night by two separate witnesses.” “Are you sure it was Miss Everett they saw?” asked Bates in a tone of anxiety rather than surprise. “Positive; they described her dress and ornaments exactly.” “But she might have been in the halls for any purpose——” “At two o’clock in the morning?” “She might have missed her mother from the apartment and stepped out to look for her.” “But then she would have been in negligée or with a wrap over her nightclothes. She was seen fully dressed, as she had been in the evening.” “Well,” and Bates spoke defiantly, “what does it prove? You haven’t fastened the crime on Mrs Everett yet. You haven’t even any real evidence against her.”