“Fine,” Holt answered. “I could speak a couple of volumes on the way that makes me feel, but action, not words, is my specialty. Let’s get down to brass tacks. What happened here to-night, anyhow? Who was all them people down-stairs? Where do we start, and how soon?”
They all looked at Charlie, and patiently he went over the events of the evening, up to the firing of the shot and the discovery of Landini’s dead body. The young man nodded.
“I get you. At the time the shot was fired, who was unaccounted for?”
“Quite a number,” Charlie told him. “Of the guests, Miss Leslie Beaton, whose scarf, oddly enough, is clutched in dead woman’s hands. Also, Dr. Frederic Swan and Mr. Luis Romano. Of the servants, Cecile and—er—Ah Sing.”
“Five of ’em,” commented the sheriff. “Well, it could have been
