“To play safe, they pumped some of the gas into my room, to keep me slumbering while Minnie was at work. But I had been nervous, jumpy, and was sleeping in a chair in the center of the room, instead of on the bed, chose to the gas-pipe; so I came out of the dope before the night was far gone.
“By this time, Aaronia Haldorn had made a couple of discoveries: first, that her husband’s interest in the girl wasn’t altogether financial; and second, that he had gone off center, was a dangerous maniac. Going around hypnotized all the time, what brains he had–not a whole lot to start with, she says–had become completely scrambled. His success in flimflamming his followers had gone to his head. He thought he could do anything, get away with anything. He had dreams, she says, of the entire world deluded into belief in his divinity: he didn’t see why that would be any–or much–more difficult than fooling the handful that he had fooled. She thinks he actually had insane notions of his own divinity. I don’t go that far. I think he knew well enough that he wasn’t divine, but thought he could kid the rest of the world. These details don’t make much difference: the thing is that he was a nut who saw no limit to his power.
“Aaronia Haldorn had, she says, no knowledge of Riese’s murder until after it was done. Joseph, using the vision-and-voice trick, sent Gabrielle down to see the corpse on the altar step. That would fit in, you see, with his original scheme to tie her to him by playing his divinity against her curse. Apparently, he intended joining her there, and putting on an act of some sort for her. But Collinson and I interrupted that. Joseph and Gabrielle heard us talking at the door, so Joseph held back, not joining her at the altar, and she came to meet us. Joseph’s plan was successful this far: the girl actually believed the curse had been responsible for Riese’s death. She told us she had killed him and ought to be hanged for it.
“As soon as I saw Riese’s body I knew she hadn’t killed him. He was lying in an orderly position. It was plain he had been doped before being killed. Then the door leading to the altar, which I imagined was kept locked, was open, and she didn’t know anything about the key. There was a chance that she had been in on the killing, but none that she had done it alone as she confessed.
“The place was scientifically equipped for eavesdropping: both of the Haldorns heard her confession. Aaronia got busy manufacturing evidence to fit the confession. She went up to Gabrielle’s room and got her dressing-gown; got the bloody dagger from where I had dropped it beside the body after taking it from the girl; wrapped the dagger in the dressing-gown, and stuck them in a corner where the police could find them easy enough. Meanwhile, Joseph is working in another direction. He doesn’t–as his wife does–want Gabrielle carried off to jail or the booby-hatch. He wants her. He wants her belief in her guilt and responsibility to tie her to him, not take her away. He removes Riese’s remains–tucking them in one of the concealed cabinets–and has the Finks clean up the mess. He’s overheard Collinson trying to persuade me to hush up the doings, and so he knows he can count on the boy–the only other exactly sane witness–to keep quiet if I’m taken care of.
“Kill yourself into a hole, and the chances are a time comes when you have to kill yourself out. To this nut Joseph now, ‘taking care of’ me is simply a matter of another murder. He and the Finks–though I don’t think we’re going to prove their part–went to work on Minnie with the spooks again. She had killed Riese docilely enough: why not me? You see, they were handicapped by not being equipped for this wholesale murdering into which they had all of a sudden plunged. For instance, except for my gun and one of the maids’–which they didn’t know anything about–there wasn’t a firearm in the place; and the dagger was the only other weapon–until they got to dragging in carving sets and plumber’s helpers. Then, too, I suppose, there were the sleeping customers to consider–Mrs. Rodman’s probable dislike for being roused by the noise of her spiritual guides ganging up on a roughneck sleuth. Anyway, the idea was that Minnie could be induced to walk up to me and stick the dagger into me in a quiet way.