Hilary Gallaway, Shand—who had come out from town again—and I sat over coffee and cigarettes in the kitchen, while the rest of the household helped Dr. Rench battle for Exon’s life. The old man had gone through enough excitement in the last three days to kill a healthy man, let alone a pneumonia convalescent.
“But why should the old devil want to kill her?” Gallaway asked me.
“Search me,” I confessed, a little testily perhaps. “I don’t know why he wanted to kill her, but it’s a cinch that he did. The gun was found just about where he could have thrown it when he heard me coming. I was in the girl’s room when she was shot, and I got to Exon’s window without wasting much time, and I saw nothing. You, yourself, driving home from Knownburg, and arriving here right after the shooting, didn’t see anybody leave by the road; and I’ll take an oath that nobody could have left in any other direction without either one of the farm hands or me seeing them.
“And then, tonight, I told Exon that the girl would recover if she didn’t tear off her bandages; which, while true enough, gave him the idea that she had been trying to tear them off. And from that he built up a plan of tearing them off himself—knowing that she had been given an opiate, perhaps—and thinking that everybody would believe she had torn them off herself. And he was putting that plan in execution—had torn of one piece of tape—when I stopped him. He shot her intentionally, and that’s flat. Maybe I couldn’t prove it in court without knowing why; but I know he did. But the doc says he’ll hardly live to be tried; he killed himself trying to kill the girl.”
“Maybe you’re right,” and Gallaway’s mocking grin flashed at me, “but you’re a hell of a detective just the same. Why didn’t you suspect me?”