“I don’t want to discuss it either,” said Bates, and his tone was full of indignation. “There is no room for discussion after this asinine performance of yours! You’re not fit to be a detective! You get some ladies together and badger them into all sorts of thoughtless, unmeant admissions and call that testimony! I’m surprised at you, Gibbs. And I tell you frankly what I mean to do. I’m going out,—right now,—to get a detective who can detect! A man who knows the first principles of the business,—which you don’t even seem to dream of! I’ve had enough of your futile questioning, your unfounded suspicions, your absurd deductions! I’m off!” CHAPTER XIV Penny Wise When Richard set out to do a thing, he did it, and without consulting anybody he went at once for Pennington Wise, the detective, and by good luck, succeeding in obtaining the services of that astute investigator. Bates told him the whole story, and Wise saw at once that though the young man was fearful of his aunt’s implication in the matter, he was even more alarmed at the idea of his sweetheart’s mother being brought into it. “I look at it this way,” Bates said; “Mrs Everett and Miss Prall are so bitterly at enmity, that either of them would be willing to further a suspicion of the other. I know neither was really guilty——” “Wait a minute,” put in Wise, “how do you know that?” “Oh, I know they couldn’t be! They’re—they’re ladies——” “That doesn’t deny the possibility,—what else?” “Why,—they,—oh, they’re women,—women couldn’t do a thing like that!” “But, ‘women’ did do it,—according to your story.” “Of course; but it must have been a lower class of women,—not ladies, like my aunt and Mrs Everett.” “Is that ‘feud’ of which you’ve told me, a distinctly ladylike performance?” “No; it isn’t. It’s a——” “I gather, from your report of it, it’s a regular old-fashioned hair-pulling sort of feminine spitefulness.” “That’s just what it is; and it is in bad taste and all that sort of thing. But murder! That’s different!” “Of course it’s different, and must be treated differently. If your aunt’s name is so much as hinted at in connection with crime, you must clear it,—if possible. Here we have a murder,—a mysterious murder. The police have been notified, that puts it into the public’s hands. You can’t afford to hold back anything now. Nor can you afford to conceal or gloss over anything. That would be to invite suspicion. Absolute frankness on your part and on the part of your aunt is imperative.” “You’ll get it from me, but Solomon himself couldn’t understand my aunt if she chose to be secretive.” “Why should she be secretive?” “Oh, it’s such a mix-up, Mr Wise. You’ll see when you meet the two women. Either of them would do or say anything,—anything at all, if it would annoy or disturb the other.” “I think I understand, but I think I can discriminate between the truth and the pretense.”