Page:The achievements of Luther Trant - Balmer and MacHarg - 1910.djvu/92

70 The telephone in the house had been broken, so at the sudden summons he dashed out, without remembering his danger. I am glad to be able to tell you of that fine, brave thing when I must tell you, also, the terrible truth that the woman whom he had helped and protected was the one who, in a fit of jealousy, when she found he had merely meant to be kind to her, sent him out to his death."

"Mrs. Mitchell?" the girl cried in horror. "Oh, not Mrs. Mitchell!"

"Yes, Mrs. Mitchell, for whom he had done so much and whose past he protected, in the noblest way, even from you. But as she was the wife of the criminal we have just caught, I am glad to believe this man played upon her old passions, so that for a while he held his old sway over her and she did his bidding without counting the consequences.

"I told you this morning, Inspector Walker, that I could not explain to you my conclusions in the test of Kanlan. But I owe you now a full explanation. You will recall that I commented upon the fact that the crime which was puzzling you was committed within so short a time after the knowledge of Mr. Bronson's engagement became known, that I divined a possible connection. But that, at best, was only indirect. The first direct thing which struck me was the circumstance that the man waited in the vestibule of the electro-plater's shop. I was certain that the very pungent fruit-ether odor of banana oil—the thinning material used by electro-platers in preparing their lacquers—must be forever intimately connected with