"She lives down on Washington Square. I only know her slightly, but she is a warm-hearted and a most capable and sensible one. She refuses to believe that Vicky Van--" "What do you call her?" "Her friends call her Vicky Van. It--it sort of suits her." "From what you say, I judge she is not the terror I thought her at first; but, all the same, she murdered my husband, and I cannot look on her as you seem to." "Nor can I blame you. Your feelings toward her are entirely just, Mrs. Schuyler." CHAPTER VIII THE LETTER-BOX "It's a queer case," said Mr. Bradbury to me, when I reached the office that afternoon. "Of course, I know Randolph Schuyler was no saint, but I never supposed he was deep enough in any affair to have a woman kill him. And so near his own home, too! He might have had the decency to choose his lady acquaintances in more remote sections of the city." "That isn't the queerest part to me," I returned. "What I can't understand is, why that girl stabbed him. She didn't know him--" "Now, now, Calhoun, she must have known him. She didn't know any Somers, we'll say, but she must have known Schuyler. A murder has to have a motive. She had provided herself with that knife beforehand, you see, and she got him out to the dining-room purposely." "I can't think it," I said, and I sighed. "I know Vicky Van fairly well, and she wouldn't--" "You can't say what a woman would or wouldn't do. But it's not our business to look after the criminal part of it, we've got all we can handle, attending to the estate. And here's another thing. I wish you'd do all that's necessary up at the house. I always got along all right with Randolph Schuyler, but I can't stand those sisters of his. His wife I have never met. But those old Schuyler women get on my nerves. So you look after them. You're more of a ladies' man than I am, so you go there and talk pretty when they want legal advice." "I'm willing," I agreed. "I don't care such a lot for the sisters myself, but Mrs. Schuyler is a young thing, ignorant of her own rights, and those old maids boss her like fury. I'm going to see that she has her own way in some few things, at least. She inherits half the fortune, you know." "Yes, and the sisters a quarter each. That is, after some minor bequests and charitable donations are settled. Schuyler was a good sort--as men go." "Then men go pretty badly! He was a brute to his wife; I've been told he ruled her with a rod of iron, and what he didn't bother her about, the old sisters did." "That's neither here nor there. Don't you try to be a peacemaker in that family. I know those two old ladies, and they'd resent anything in the way of criticism of their treatment of their sister-in-law. And, if Schuyler didn't treat his wife handsomely, she's rid of him now, at any rate."