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 truth of what his eyes told him he seemed to paralyze—he was utterly incapable of speech or action.

A fine looking man, the detective saw. Straight, strong, vital. His hair was light brown—almost golden—and had a curly wave in it that gave charm to an otherwise stern cast of features.

His eyes were gray-blue, and now they were so blank, so dazed, as to have almost no expression whatever.

It was the man, Prall, who moved first.

He had stood beside his master, wondering, staring, and then all at once he broke into deep sobs and turned away to hide his face.

It seemed to galvanize the other, and Andrew Barham gave a strong shudder as he tried to pull himself together.

“It is my wife,” he said, turning to the detective. “What do you know about it? How came she here? We do not know this place.”

“Mrs. Barham must have known, sir. She came in her own car, with her own chauffeur.”

“Louis! Is he here?”

“Yes, Mr. Barham.”

“It is a mystery. I do not understand at all. But this is my wife—and—she is dead. Was she—was it an accident?”

“We do not think so.”

And then Doctor Gannett gave his account of the finding of the body on the floor

“On the floor?” Barham interrupted. “Just where?”

He was shown, and he wondered more than ever.

“With this book-end,” he mused, “this bronze Sphinx. You say it is not possible that it was an accident? That she fell on it—she was on the floor”

“No”; and Doctor Babcock added his own testimony to Gannett’s.