Isabel Ostrander

“ I tell you, Mac, we've the hardest proposition ahead of us that the department has ever tackled, but if I can once get the goods on Oliver Jarvis I can force him to come through."
McCarty shook his head.
"In spite of that glove, and the fact that he can't or won't account for the time between his visit to his lawyer and to the consulate, sir, I can't see your case against him," he remarked. "What if he did lose his wife's money? If she cared for him she'd stick just the same, and anyway, he'd have no need to go to the length of killing her when she found it out. ”

“ Everything is so tame now, that he has to go back ten years in the history of the department to dig up a little excitement. The cases we've got on hand are too trifling for his consideration since he's become a man of means and his own boss! ”

“ Jarvis' friends and associates," the Inspector responded significantly. "Whatever the affair was which she went to such lengths to keep under cover, I am satisfied that it had nothing to do with the murder. I'm with our friend Terhune there, but the rest of his theory is all rubbish. I mean to have a talk to-morrow with Miss Norwood; she may know something as she was the dead woman's closest friend."
"She's got money, hasn't she?" asked McCarty irrelevantly. "The old man—her uncle—said something to-day about her inheritance." ”

“ Jarvis knew what a shark Norwood is on fingerprint evidence and he took the gloves along to prevent leaving any traces when he forced the catch of the window. Something—perhaps hearing the blind secretary moving about—must have frightened him away before he could remove the ladder and retrieve the glove which he'd dropped. ”

“ There is every indication to make me believe she is on the level and yet the facts as we know them show that her statement must be a lie. Mrs. Jarvis was murdered before six o'clock and her body spirited across to the other house; that is the plain truth of the matter, in spite of Terhune's elaborate theory. Margot could have only one reason for trying to fix the time when the dressing-room was ransacked at a later hour, and that is loyalty to the husband of the dead woman. ”

“ I think Jarvis banked on the hope that the body would not be discovered until the following day, and that after he had established an alibi against any possible future questioning he could get home and put that dressing-room in order before Margot or any of the other servants entered it. That would leave him with a clear slate. I don't deny that he is in very apparent grief now, but remorse would account for it, whether he was in love with his wife or not. He killed her all right, Mac; there's no doubt in my mind as to that."
"Here is the old Hoyos report, sir." Yost appeared in the doorway. ”

“ The authorities were notified and an investigation was instituted but there was no trace of either Hoyos or the woman until about three weeks later, on the fourteenth of June when a police boat patrolling the lower bay picked up a man's body which was identified by means of the clothing and initialed jewelry as that of Leonidas Hoyos. The body itself was greatly mutilated, presumably by contact with passing river craft, and an autopsy was unable to determine the presence of a bullet wound but the conditions of the lungs did not indicate death by drowning. ”