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.