CHAPTER 8THE news that old Miss Nettie had been murdered in her bed and her jewels stolen spread through the town like wildfire. Little knots of men gathered in front of the Court House and fire hall discussed it, making up missing facts as they went. Women in the market and over back fences wagged heads and tongues. In a short time bits of half-forgotten gossip were revived as indisputable fact.
Everyone took it for granted that it was a conspiracy between Gail Wyndham and her two cousins. Only a few seemed bright enough to see that they had nothing to gain.
“They’d not do murder so their cousin’d get all of it, sooner than was natural,” said our mail carrier to Estaphine when she took the noon mail. “It ain’t human nature.”
“Deed’n thas so,” she remarked admiringly. His profound obser
