"
"Why, yes, I had not thought of that. It is peculiar, is it not?
But some people are so foolishly afraid of having anything to do
with the police, you know."
"That is very true, Miss Roemer. Still it is a queer incident and
something that I must look into."
"What do you believe?" asked the girl tensely.
"I am not in a position to say as yet. When I am, I will come to
you and tell you."
"Then you do not think that my guardian killed John--that there
was a quarrel between the men?"
"There is, of course, a possibility that it may have been so. You
know your guardian better than I do, naturally. Our knowledge of
a man's character is often a far better guide than any circumstantial
evidence."
"My guardian is a man of the greatest uprightness of character. But
he can be very hard and pitiless sometimes. And he has a violent
temper which his weak heart has forced him to keep in control of
late years."
"All this speaks for the possibility that there may have been a
quarrel ending in the fatal shot. But what I want to know from
you is this--do you think it possible, that, this having happened,
Albert Graumann would not have been the first to confess his
unpremeditated crime? Is not this the most likely thing for a man
of his character to do? Would he so stubbornly deny it, if it had
happened?"
The girl started. "I had not thought of that! Why, why, of course,
he might have killed John in a moment of temper, but he was never
a man to conceal a fault.
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