“A small-caliber weapon, then.”
“Yes. A derringer or a pocket revolver.”
“Does Bonnifield carry a hideout weapon, Miss Dumont?”
“No. I’ve never seen one.”
“And if he did have one tonight,” John pointed out, “he had no time to rid himself of it.”
“Then who did shoot Diamond?”
“Not my sister or me,” Jeffrey Gaunt said, speaking for the first time. “Neither of us has ever carried a weapon.”
“Did Diamond?”
“On occasion, yes. A double-barreled derringer.”
“Well, it wasn’t on his body.” Thorpe turned to Lady One-Eye. “When did you last see it, Mrs. Diamond?”
“I don’t recall,” she said. “If he wasn’t carrying it, I expect you’ll find it among his belongings in our lodgings.”
“Someone could have stolen it and used it to shoot him.”
“Yes, but who? And who stole his diamond stickpin?”
John said, “I can answer that question.”
“Oh, you can,” Thorpe said. “Who?”
John’s penchant for the dramatic led him to pause before responding. He lifted a hand and would have fluffed his beard if it were still untrimmed. As it was he settled for clearing his throat several times.
“Lily Dumont, of course,” he said.
“Her! I should’ve known.” Lady One-Eye jabbed menacingly at the younger woman with her cane. “You dirty, murdering husband-stealer—”
Lily shrank away from her. “It’s a lie! I didn’t kill Jack and I didn’t steal his stickpin.”
“Ah, but you did,” John said. “Slipped it out of his cravat when you flung yourself down beside his body, in the moment before you announced that he was dead. You were the only person close enough to have managed it without being noticed.”
Sabina said wryly, “Jack O’Diamonds’ handsome face wasn’t his only lure for her. Money and the promise of more to come was at least part of the reason she was going away with him.”
“What’s that?” Thorpe said. “She was going away with Diamond?”
“All right,” Lily cried, “all right, I was. And yes, I took his stickpin — why shouldn’t I? He was dead and he would’ve wanted me to have it. He loved me and I loved him.”
Lady One-Eye uttered a coarse word well known to cattlemen. “I want it back. Where is it?”
“Where you’ll never find it.”
“You didn’t have time to hide it. It’s still on your person. I’ll strip you naked right here in front of these men if you don’t give it up.”
The threat, Sabina thought, was not an idle one. Lily knew it, too. She bit her lip, turned her back, and fished the stickpin from the bodice of her dress. Lady One-Eye reached for it, but Thorpe claimed it first.
“Evidence,” he said.
Lily appealed to him, saying, “But I didn’t shoot him. You have to believe me. I don’t own a handgun, I don’t even know how to fire one.”
The sheriff turned to John. “Is she telling the truth or not?”
John cleared his throat again, but not for the same reason as before, and tugged at his shirt collar as if it had grown a tad snug. The gesture almost made Sabina smile. She knew him well enough by now to know when his deductive prowess had temporarily failed him: he had no clear-cut idea of who had fired the fatal shot.
“Ah, perhaps she is,” he hedged, “and then again perhaps she isn’t.”
“What the devil does that mean?”
“It means,” McFinn said scornfully, “he doesn’t know either way. He doesn’t have a clue to the identity of Diamond’s murderer.”
There was a small uncomfortable silence.
The time had come for Sabina to step in. She said, “Of course he does. We both know the murderer’s name and how the crime was committed. Don’t we, John?”
He blinked at her. There had been a time in the early years of their professional relationship when he’d considered her a very competent detective though not his equal when it came to solving the knottier type of problem. That attitude had since changed, fortunately for both their sakes or they would not have reached the level of intimacy they presently shared. The look he gave her now not only showed gratitude for her face-saving gesture, but both respect and eagerness.
“Well, Mrs. Carpenter?” Thorpe demanded. “Who was it?”
“Lady One-Eye, of course.”
Heads swung toward the recent widow. Lady One-Eye stood in her usual ramrod-stiff posture, one hand resting on the gold knob of her cane, her good eye impaling Sabina. The only emotion it or her expression betrayed was contempt.
“How dare you accuse me. I might have been shot, too, tonight. Or have you forgotten the note that threatened my life and my husband’s?”
“I haven’t forgotten it. You wrote that note yourself.”
“I wrote it? That’s ridiculous.”
“On the contrary,” Sabina said. “When we were about to play stud tonight I noticed a faint smudge of green on your left thumb — green ink, the same color as the writing on the note, that multiple hand-washings was unable to eradicate. My guess is that you didn’t bother to dispose of the bottle and the sheriff will find it in your lodgings.”
“Suppose she did write the note,” Thorpe said. “What was her purpose?”
Lady One-Eye said, “Yes, whatever your name is, what possible reason could I have for threatening myself and shooting my husband?”
“He was going to leave you, that’s why!” Lily cried. The shift of suspicion from her to her rival had relieved her, made her bold again. “He was tired of you and your cold and stingy ways. And you knew it.”
“I knew nothing of the kind. Did I, Jeffrey?”
“Certainly not,” her brother said, his slow drawl as wintery as hers. “Nor did I, for it isn’t true.”
Lily pointed a tremulous finger at Lady One-Eye. “Oh, yes it is. You as much as said so last night at my table. You warned me against trying to take Jack away from you.”
“If that were true, which it wasn’t, and I were going to shoot anyone, it would have been you, not him.”
“Unless,” Sabina said, “your hate for him and his faithless ways had become intolerable, as it surely had. He must have let something slip earlier today that convinced you he was going to run off with Lily, and soon, perhaps as soon as tonight.”
“Yes,” Lily said. “Tonight!”
“With her and possibly some or all of your recent winnings.”
“Utter claptrap,” Gaunt said. He laid a protective hand on Lady One-Eye’s arm, glaring daggers at Sabina as he did so. “I have complete control of my sister’s finances. There is no way Jack could have gotten his hands on any of her money.”
She ignored him. “That’s why you acted when you did,” she said to Lady One-Eye. “As for the note, you wrote that to divert suspicion from yourself, to make it seem as though you were also an intended victim — further proof of premeditation. I’ll warrant, too, that if you’d had enough time to complete your plan, you would have found a way to frame Lily for the crime. That way, you would have gotten revenge on both of them.”
“Sheriff,” Lady One-Eye said to Thorpe, “I won’t stand for any more of these outrageous accusations. How could I possibly have shot my husband? I was sitting at my table on the platform, in plain sight of the room. My hands were in plain sight, too. If I had drawn a gun and fired it, someone would surely have seen me do it.”
“That’s right,” McFinn said, “I would have. I happened to glance at her table before the shot and again just afterward and she was sitting as she said, with her hands in plain sight.”