“Nothing; but there are few pedestrians at two o’clock in the morning, and fewer still who have a reason for a murder.” “Oh, it must have been prearranged,” said Bates, thoughtfully. “There’s not the slightest doubt,” he went on hurriedly, “that whoever killed him,—man, woman or child!—came in from the street to do the deed.” “Why, of course,” agreed Miss Prall; “where else could they have come from? Nobody in the house would do it!” “No; I suppose not,” admitted Corson. “Well, then, ma’am, we have the assassin coming in from the street, while Moore is upstairs. And, according to the victim’s own statement, the assassin was feminine and there were two, at least, of them. For I’ve studied that paper, and it says, clearly, ‘women did this.’ Want to see it?” his hand went toward his breast pocket. “No,—oh, no,” and Miss Prall shuddered. “Well, supposing a couple of women came in, having, we’ll say, watched their chance, what more likely than that it was two chickens,—beg pardon, ma’am, that means gay young ladies,—with whom Sir Herbert had been dining? Why, like as not they came in with him. They didn’t hang round outside waiting for him. You see, they’d been with him, and he had in some way offended them, let us say, and they wanted to kill him——” “Seems to me you’re drawing a long bow,” and Bates almost smiled at the mental picture of two gay chorus girls committing the gruesome deed. Corson spoke seriously. “No, Mr Bates, I’m not. If we take this written paper at its face value, and I don’t know why we shouldn’t, it means that women killed that man. And _if_ women, who more likely than the chorus girls? Unless you people up here can suggest some other women,—some, any women in the man’s private life who wished to do him harm or who wished him out of the way. That’s why I’m here, to learn anything and all things you may know that might aid me in a search for the right women—the women who really killed him. Chorus girls are wholly supposititious. But the real women, the women who _are_ the criminals, must and shall be found!” CHAPTER VI The Little Dinner The next morning at eight o’clock, Morton, the day doorman, came on duty. Corson eagerly began at once to question him, and he told the story of Sir Herbert Binney’s departure from the house, but there his information ended. “All I know is, Mr Binney went away from here in a taxicab, ’long about half-past six, I think it was. And he went to the Hotel Magnifique,—at least, that’s what he told the driver. And that’s the last I saw of him. But his man, Peters, is due any minute,—maybe he’ll know more.” “Peters? A valet?” “Yes, and general factotum. He comes every morning at eight, and takes care of his boss.” And in a few moments Peters arrived. His shocked astonishment at the news was too patently real to give the slightest grounds of suspicion that he had any knowledge of it before his arrival.