“I’ve seen the reports,” he said. “She went out yesterday without eating her lunch. At three o’clock or somewhat later she bought some darning silk at the notion counter of Stern and Jones. The saleswoman says she looked sick, and complained of cramps. The girl advised her to go to the rest room. She did. She sat in a chair at first. Then the maid got her to a couch, and called the store doctor. He says she didn’t give her name or address, and by the time she got to the hospital she wasn’t able to. It looks as though some time between the time she left the house and when she was found in the rest room she got the poison.”

With Carlton looking on, he examined the clothing Ida had worn when taken to the hospital. It revealed nothing. Her bag, however, provided a shock. It contained no lipstick or powder. The coin purse had only a dollar or two. But tucked in a pocket behind a mirror were five new one-hundred-dollar bills.

The two men stared at them incredulously.

“You don’t pay her in money like that?”

“Good heavens, no. Where did she get it?”

The notes were in series, and the inspector made a record of their numbers. Then he sealed them in an envelope and ordered them put in the safe. Carlton was still unnerved when they reached the street. He lit a cigarette with shaking hands. But he was still fighting. He drew a long breath.

“At least this murder lets us out,” he said. “None of us would kill the girl. And as for that money—”

“I suppose you were all at home yesterday afternoon after the inquest?”

Carlton flushed.

“You were there. You saw us. Except my sister. She was out shopping. But she would have no reason—You can’t suspect her of this. She—”

The inspector cut in on him.

“Where does she usually shop?”

“At—I don’t know. All over town, I imagine. What difference does it make? She was in Atlantic City when Mother died. And she was fond of Ida. You can’t go on like this,” he said, raising his voice. “You can’t suspect all of us. It’s damnable. It’s crazy.”

“We have had two murders,” said the inspector stolidly. “There’s a restaurant in Stern and Jones, isn’t there?”

“I don’t know. Marian ate her lunch after she left.”

They parted there, Carlton stiffly to hail a taxi and go home, the inspector to go back to his office and call up certain banks. He found the one Carlton Fairbanks used, and asked them to check his account. After a brief wait he got the figures.

“Balance is three hundred and forty dollars. He drew out seventy-five in cash last week. That’s all. Not suspecting him, are you, inspector?”

“No record of a withdrawal of five hundred in one-hundred-dollar bills in the last month or so?”

“No. He never has much of a balance.”

It was one o’clock when he reached the Fairbanks house again. He interviewed the servants first. They were subdued and frightened. Even Amos had lost some of his surliness, and when they learned that Ida had been poisoned with arsenic there was a stricken silence. But they had nothing to tell him. Ida had taken Mrs. Fairbanks’s death hard. She had eaten nothing in the house the day before after her breakfast, “and little enough of that.” Asked where she kept her savings they agreed that she had an account at a downtown bank.