Twenty-six
II was to wonder afterwards that I could have been so blind. The truth hadstuck out so clearly all along. Josephine and only Josephine fitted in withall the necessary qualifications. Her vanity, her persistent¹ self-importance,her delight in talking, her reiteration² on how clever she was, and how stu-pid the police were.
I had never considered her because she was a child. But children havecommitted murders, and this particular murder had been well within achild’s compass. Her grandfather himself had indicated the precisemethod—he had practically handed her a blueprint³. All she had to do wasto avoid leaving fingerprints⁴ and the slightest knowledge of detection fic-tion would teach her that. And everything else had been a mere⁵ hotch-potch, culled⁶ at random⁷ from stock mystery stories. The notebook—thesleuthing—her pretended suspicions, her insistence⁸ that she was not goingto tell till she was sure….
And finally the attack on herself. An almost incredible performance con-sidering that she might easily have killed herself. But then, childlike, shehad never considered such a possibility. She was the heroine. The heroineisn’t killed. Yet there had been a clue there—the traces of earth on the seatof the old chair in the washhouse. Josephine was the only person whowould have had to climb up on a chair to balance the block of marble onthe top of the door. Obviously it had missed her more than once (the dintsin the floor) and patiently she had climbed up again and replaced it, hand-ling it with her scarf to avoid fingerprints. And then it had fallen—and shehad had a near escape from death.
It had been the perfect setup—the impression she was aiming for! Shewas in danger, she “knew something,” she had been attacked!
I saw how she had

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