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Rh know but that all that has occurred so far has been sheer accident."

"Well, I'm glad you are going to find out!" Gene held out his hand frankly to the detective. "You can count on me, Mr. Odell."

"Thank you, Mr. Chalmers. I shall want to have a little conference with your father and Mr. Titheredge here, but I'll look you up later."

Gene took the hint and sauntered out of the library; and Nan prepared to follow him, but Odell stopped her.

"May I ask. Miss Chalmers, whether or not the broken stair has been mended yet?"

"No, Mr. Odell. Aunt Effie wanted to have it attended to, but she was afraid the hammering would disturb father. She hates to have anything upset around the house."

"Then if you will sit here with your father for a few minutes Mr. Titheredge and I will go and inspect it."

Gene was nowhere to be seen when the attorney and Odell reëntered the hall, and they mounted the stairs to the topmost step, covered with a crimson-velvet runner. The detective knelt on the step just below and felt over the smooth pile of the carpet's surface.

"You see," he said rapidly in a lowered tone to his companion, "the tread of the step neither collapsed in the middle, nor split, nor caved in at either end; it simply turned forward over the face as if on a pivot as soon as Mr. Lorne's weight was placed upon it, pitching him headlong down."

"The carpet appears to be loose, doesn't it?" Titheredge himself bent and gave it a tug; and the strip of crimson velvet came away in his hands from beneath the edge of