The Trigger of Conscience (Detective Story serial)/Part 5

HEN Crane awakened in his room at the club on the following morning the church bells were tolling, and bright sunlight streamed in at the window. For a moment the haze of sleep still encompassed him, then consciousness returned in a full tide, bearing upon its crest the problem which confronted him. Mrs. Dorrance's emeralds were a side issue and did not concern him, but, in spite of his repudiation of her theory as a whole, it had brought certain questions to his mind which must be answered, even while it had made clear to him several points upon which he had formerly been in the dark.

It might have been by sheer accident that Alice Dare had lingered under the dragon lantern early on the evening of the dance, yet her aunt's accusations, carried though they were through the medium of gossiping maids and an envious social rival, were significant. He had Doyle's notes to confirm the report of the attachment which existed between the young girl and the penniless bank employee, but Doyle had also observed the increasing nervousness of the couple and their self-conscious avoidance of of each other. He had stated his opinion that they were “up to some mischief.” If they were guiltless of any wrong what had Alice Dare and Gerald Landon to fear? They were both young enough to wait, and, if the girl had any stamina, the mere disapproval of her aunt need not have caused her such agitation.

Mrs. de Forest had taken locker No. 19 in the ladies' dressing room for Alice's use, and the girl had been designated “N”—evidently niece—in Doyle's notes. For some reason he had kept a wary eye upon her from the first and had even included her in his list of possible “subjects” or suspect. At the same time he pronounced Landon straight and declared that there was “N. D.,” or nothing doing, in an attempt to connect him with the theft of the necklace. Had the dead operative considered only the girl's motive and opportunity, or had he other cause to suspect her?

Another phase of the enigma recurred to Crane's mind. Why had young Mrs. Sowerby stated that she was in the conservatory when the shot was fired if, in reality, she had been upstairs in one of the resting rooms, which must have been passed by the person who threw the pistol out of the window?

Impatiently thrusting his futile cogitations from his mind Crane sprang out of bed and rang the bell. Henry appeared, and a cold shower and hearty breakfast made the detective ready for his day's work. After ascertaining that Murdock was still at liberty about the club, but under the watchful eye of Jewett, he ordered the little flivver and started again along the road bordered by the glen, keeping his engine as silent as possible and sitting back under the screening top of the car.

It was just past eleven o'clock, and Crane anticipated that most of the country club colony would be at church. Even those members who did not usually put themselves to such unwonted exertion would want to catch any morsel of sensational gossip which might be let fall later. He deduced that others would count upon this fact, also, and would choose the glen, at this hour, as a safe meeting place. If he had hoped to come upon the same couple as before he was doomed to disappointment.

Leaving the car he climbed the fence and strolled down the path beside the little stream, but no sound of voices or footsteps rewarded him. He was about to turn back when he heard his name called in ringing, masculine tones and glanced across the brook to behold Gerald Landon and Alice Dare seated on a fallen log, a suspiciously decorous space between them.

“Won't you come over, Mr. Crane? There isn't any bridge, but you'll find a row of stepping-stones a few paces to your right.”

“Thanks.” Crane laughed. “Good morning, Miss Dare. May I join you? Most of the people I wanted to interview are at church, but I think you have found the best place of worship, after all.”

She nodded smilingly, but her flush deepened, as he sprang lightly across the tilting stones and seated himself upon a convenient stump.

“I—I have headache, Mr. Crane. At least that is what I told my aunt, or I should have had to go to church, too!” she said with shy audacity. “You see I am putting myself in your hands so that you will not give me away, but it was such a beautiful morning I could not resist a walk, and then—then I met Mr. Landon.”

“I won't give you away, Miss Dare, if you will allow me to ask you a question or two,” he responded gravely. Then, as her eyes widened, and she instinctively shrank away from him, he added: “Please don't be annoyed; I am sure  that you will be only too glad to answer when you know what I wish to ask, even in the presence of Mr. Landon.”

The challenge was unmistakable, and, mere girl though she was, she recognized it and lifted her little chin spiritedly. “You can ask me nothing concerning myself, Mr. Crane, that I am not perfectly willing to answer in the presence of Mr. Landon, or anybody else, but, if it is about that horrible murder, I have already told you what little I know, and I had rather not discuss it further.”

“It isn't,” he assured her. “Miss Dare, you attended a house party, somewhere in the Berkshires, about a week after the Harvest dance, didn't you?”

“Why, yes, at the Jordan Nicolls',” she replied, surprise raising her soft tones a note or two.

“They gave a masquerade, did they not? May I ask what sort of costume you wore!”

“A simple black domino. My aunt wished me to wear an Egyptian costume, but, at the last moment, I found that it was not suitable.” The surprise was gone from the girl's tones now, and she hesitated as though embarrassed.

“Did you wear any Miss jewels, Miss Dare?” Crane persisted.

To his astonishment she laughed suddenly, a lilting little ripple of sheer amusement.

“Oh, you mean those emeralds of Mrs. Dorrance's? Indeed, no! Of course I could not offend her by refusing her offer, especially as my aunt insisted that I accept, but I should have looked like a stained-glass window in them. I did not even take them with me!”

“Will you tell me, then, where you left them during your absence?”

Gerald Landon did not permit Alice to answer the detective.

“Look here, Mr. Crane, you'll have to pardon me for butting in, but I'd like to know what all this is leading to! That Dorrance woman didn't have her emeralds on at the dance Friday night; is she trying to claim that something happened to them while they were supposed to be in Alice's hands?”

“Gerald!” the girl exclaimed softly, but he retorted: “Oh, what is the use of pretending? I'm getting sick of it, dear, and, besides, after a certain conversation I had with Mr. Crane in the locker room at the club, yesterday, I know he doesn't ask a pointless question.” He turned to the detective. “Those emeralds are worth a fortune, and it would not have been safe for Alice to travel alone with them, even if she had intended to wear them. She consulted me, and I suggested that we ask Mr. Estridge to take charge of them; he thought it was a good joke and did so. That's all there is to it.”

A vagrant puff of wind snatched at Miss Dare's tam-o'-shanter, and, as she raised both hands to her head to save it, her rough tweed sports coat fell open at the throat, exposing her slender neck and the silk blouse which she wore. Shivering a little, she drew the coat together before she took up her part of the explanation.

“You see, Mr. Crane, Mrs. Dorrance brought the emeralds to me in a traveling jewel case, just before I started for the Jordan Nicolls', and I had to pretend to take them along, for my aunt never left me until I got into the motor to drive to the station. I made an excuse to stop at Mr. Estridge's lodge for a minute. He was waiting there for me by appointment, and Gerald, too, and we all looked at the jewels to make sure that they were all right. Then Mr. Estridge put them away in his own safe. When I returned from the Jordan Nicolls' on Monday I purposely took an earlier train that I was supposed to, and Mr. Landon met me at the station with the Frasers' car and drove me to Mr. Estridge's.” She paused and added in some confusion. “I—I suppose this all sounds very deceitful to you, but I don't think you quite understand the situation.”

“Perhaps I understand it better than you think.” Crane looked straight into her eyes, and they fell before his. “Please go on. Mr. Estridge was waiting for you and gave you the jewel case to slip into your traveling bag?”

She nodded.

“He insisted upon us both looking into it first, however, to make sure that the stones were just as we three had last seen them. He himself drove me first to Mrs. Dorrance's house to return the emeralds and then home, where he explained to my aunt that it was he who had picked me up at the station. He is a dear,” she added impulsively. “You see, Mr. Crane, my aunt doesn't exactly approve of—of”

“Me!” interjected Gerald. “I'm forbidden the house, and we have had to meet like this! I don't think there is anything particularly objectionable about me except that I haven't got scads of money, but that is enough to condemn me in the old lady's eyes. There was some fellow up at the Jordan Nicolls' whom Mrs. de Forest did approve of, though, and that was why she was willing to have Alice accept Mrs. Dorrance's offer of the emeralds—wanted her to make a holy show of herself, rigged up like Cleopatra!”

“Gerald!” the girl exclaimed again softly. “It was kind of Mrs. Dorrance to offer them.”

“Kind nothing!” retorted the young man. “Don't I know the bunch out here? She only did it to try to get in with those Nicolls people through your aunt!”

“What a he-gossip you are growing to be, Gerald!” Alice laughed, and then her face grew grave, as she asked: “But why did you ask about the emeralds, Mr. Crane?”

“I didn't, if you remember,” he protested. “You brought them into the conversation, but I did mean to ask about them. I heard Mrs. Dorrance say that the settings of one or two of the pieces had become loosened, so it is as well, perhaps, that you did not wear them, but left them in the custody of Mr. Estridge during your absence. Now may I ask when either of you first became aware of the identity of Doyle?”

“I didn't until his death, as I told you yesterday,” Gerald replied. “I liked him, but Alice said that there was something odd about him that made her uncomfortable from the very day he arrived.”

“Not quite that!” the girl denied nervously.

“Well, you said, only Thursday, that he asked you funny, unexpected questions and stared after you, and that you wished you could see his eyes without that shade or”

“Gerald!” The cry broke involuntarily from the girl's lips. “I told you, too, that I did not dislike him—that his questions were never personal. Several other people thought there was something queer about him, also. You know I was only afraid that he might tell Mr. Sowerby how much we were together about the club, and Mr. Sowerby might ask you if we were secretly engaged. You would be just foolish enough to admit it, and then you would lose your position! He doesn't approve of his employees marrying under fifty, Mr. Crane!”

She had turned with a forced laugh to the detective, but he did not echo it. Instead he asked gravely: “But did you not know what his real object was in coming here? Were you not told?”

The girl's delicate face turned white to the lips, but she met his eyes fearlessly this time. “I was not, Mr. Crane. Why should I have been?”

“Because you knew what had occurred at the Harvest dance,” he replied slowly. “Do you recall a certain conversation between your aunt and yourself on reaching home that night? You were accused”

“What?” Gerald was ready to explode, but neither of them heeded him.

“How could you know that?” Alice asked.

“How do I know that you were accused the other night, after Doyle was shot, of having put what had been stolen back where it was found? Servants gossip with their friends in other houses, and your aunt would do well to be sure hat her maid is not within hearing.”

“Stop right there!” Gerald had risen, and face had whitened, too, beneath its coating of tain [sic]. “I'm going at the truth of this! What was Alice accused of stealing and putting back? She knew that fellow was a detective all the time and never told me! In Heaven's name, why not?”

“On my word of honor I never knew Doyle was a detective; I only suspected it the last few days, and then I thought my aunt had hired him to spy upon me—to keep us from eloping!” Alice declared. “Don't look at me like that, Gerald. It was my aunt's diamond necklace that was stolen on the night of the Harvest dance, and, when we got home, she accused me of taking it! You know how abusive she is and what I had to endure! I could not tell you because, the next morning, after a conference with Mr. Estridge and some others of the house committee, she made me promise not to tell a soul that it had been stolen. When I suggested a private detective she turned on me and declared that she would rather lose a hundred necklaces—that she would rather die than put herself in the hands of such sharks! I'm sorry, but that is the word she used, Mr. Crane. I have believed her implicitly, and I had no reason to doubt her word, particularly, when she told me, from time to time, that the necklace was being sought in some of the large cities. I only realized how cruelly deceitful she was when, after Doyle's death and the recovery of the necklace, she accused me of putting it there! I suppose I was the only person seen near that window, early in the evening, Gerald, but I was waiting for you!”

“Do you mean the window where that dragon lantern hung—where poor Doyle stood just before he was shot?” Gerald demanded. “But that was where we had arranged to meet and slip into the conservatory, just as we did do! Could Doyle have found your aunt's necklace anywhere about there?”

“It was right inside that lantern all the time! It must have been there while I waited for you!” The tears were raining down the girl's pale cheeks. “Oh, Gerald, you believe in me, don't you? You see why Mr. Crane has followed us down here this morning—he thinks I took the necklace and then grew afraid and put it in that lantern to to get rid of it, but I didn't! If only you believe in me nothing else matters!”

“If any one who accuses you of touching the abominable thing”—Gerald did not finish his threat, but knelt and gathered Alice into his arms. “I only wish I had known before that your aunt had accused you! You would never have spent another night under her roof, and you never shall again! My poor darling!”

“Oh, we can't—we mustn't tell just yet!” Alice exclaimed

“Then, Mrs. Landon, may I respectfully suggest that when you wear your wedding ring around your neck you use a longer ribbon?” Crane had risen and stood smiling down at them. “You may not have noticed it, but I have not addressed you as 'Miss Dare” since the wind almost blew your hat off, a while ago, and your coat flew open as you raised your arms. Am I the first to be able to congratulate you both?”

The little bride smiled through her tears and shyly placed her hand in his extended one.

“You don't believe that I” she began.

“I do not, Mrs. Landon, but, if you two try to keep your secret and go about the club looking as guilty as a pair of amateur crooks, I warn you that people are bound to talk more than they have already!” Crane declared.

“Let them!” Gerald exclaimed defiantly, as he, too, shook hands with the detective. “We were only married Thursday, but this dodging and sneaking has become unbearable already. We thought that we wouldn't announce it until I managed to get a job with a chance for advancement, but I won't allow Alice to enter her aunt's house again. I guess we can buck the game together, and, if you will keep our confidence until after the inquest, I will take my wife with me to town. In the meantime I'll tell Elsie Fraser, and she will put Alice up for the night.”

“You can understand now why I was afraid of poor Doyle when I suspected he was a detective, Mr. Crane,” Alice said. “Thinking that my aunt might have put him on our trail, in spite of her aversion to gentlemen of your profession, I feared that, if he discovered we were married, she would force me to let her have it annulled at once, on the threat of—of accusing Gerald and me openly of the theft of her necklace. I wanted to keep our elopement a secret until the real thief was found.”

“I understand, but are you sure no one else knows of your marrige [sic]?”

“I don't see how they could,” she replied. “Gerald borrowed the Frasers' runabout, and we drove to a sleepy little village, only a few miles away, and found a minister. None of the Broadlawns crowd ever go there because there is nothing to see or do. You—you won't tell, Mr. Crane?”

He promised, congratulated them again, and took his leave. As he drove slowly back to the club the grim lines settled once more about his mouth. The romance which he had unearthed had been a very pretty one, but it had brought him no nearer to a solution of his problem, and the slayer of his colleague still walked the earth, unknown and unmolested.

In the rotunda of the club he came upon Philip Dorrance lounging over a sheaf of the Sunday papers which had just arrived from town. He was as immaculately turned out as usual, but his round face looked haggard and curiously wizen, and he started nervously as the detective was about to pass him with a mere nod.

“I want a word with you, Crane; been waiting an hour, in fact,” he began. “Of course you know that I wouldn't have sent for you last night if my wife hadn't insisted, but you know also what women are! I wanted to warn you in a friendly way not to take any stock in that wild theory of hers. I am quite sure that there is some mistake about her emeralds, and I have persuaded her that it is best to keep the matter absolutely quiet and allow me to attend to it for her. If there is any fee for your time—your services in calling” He paused suggestively, and Crane's eyes narrowed.

“There is no fee, Mr. Dorrance, for I have performed no service for you. But, if you are going to attend to the matter of the emeralds, yourself, I might give you a word of advice.”

“Really?” Philip's eyebrows went up superciliously. “Of what sort may I ask?”

“Go home to your wife and confess that you yourself sold her emeralds and substituted fakes; she may let you off to avoid the scandal,” replied Crane. “Your only alternative is to be packed and ready to make your get-away when she starts for Harlier's to-morrow, but, if I am any judge of the lady, you won't get far!”

OR a moment Philip was stricken speechless at the discovery of his guilt. Then he attempted to bluster, but Crane quickly cut him short.

“You did not anticipate that the fake stones might be imperfectly set. You trusted to luck that your wife would not discover the substitution for months to come, didn't you? What have you done with the money, Mr. Dorrance?”

“See here, Crane,” the desperate young man said in a subdued tone, “this is none of your affair! You are not even an official detective! If I had done this thing, which you accuse me of, you would have no right to interfere with my wife's sanction, and you don't suppose she would give it, do you, and make herself the center of the biggest social scandal that Broadlawns ever had?”

“I do suppose just that—if I were to go and lay the whole story before her,” retorted Crane. “Were you to throw yourself upon her mercy and give her some stall about how you lost the money, and were she absolutely assured that not a whisper would ever be heard about it she might decide to forgive you. However I have not promised yet, and, if I were to speak an indiscreet word or two, here at the club, or drop one of the notes which I found after Doyle's death, proving your attempts to bribe him”

“That is a lie!” declared Philip hotly, but his face paled, and he reeled slightly against the table.

“Careful, Mr. Dorrance!” the detective warned. “We are alone in this hall for the moment, but it will be a simple matter for me to summon such of the house committee as may be about the building or grounds. I can lay the notes before them, particularly the one in which it is proved that you offered Doyle a first mortgage on property which you do not own. It is presumable that you suggested carrying out the transaction through a dummy, as you wanted all the club funds upon which he could lay his hands before he was expected to disappear. If he had absconded he would have learned that it was impossible for him to collect interest, or forcelose [sic] on that mortgage in his own name. Perhaps you reasoned that he was too stupid to realize that?”

“Stop!” Philip's last vestige of bravado left him, and he whimpered like a stray cur. “It's no use, Crane; you've got me! I did make the substitution you suggest, and I've spent the money. You were right, too, about my wife. She would hound me to the ends of the earth if I tried to run away and an inkling of this got about. If you can find and silence that impostor, who telephoned yesterday and pretended to be from Harlier's, I will go to her and tell her the truth. Perhaps her pride will keep her from kicking me out—or worse.”

“But I have not yet promised to remain silent.” Crane reminded him significantly. “I might have my price even if Doyle did not, you know.”

“So that's it! I might have known!” exclaimed Philip. “Well, whatever it is I'll pay if I can. There is no use in haggling—you have got me cornered. What do you want for your silence?”

“The true facts you threatened Mrs. Carter with if she didn't come across with the money for you to replace those emeralds,” replied Crane sternly. “A part, but not all, of your effort at blackmail and extortion, in the glen yesterday morning, was overheard.”

There was a pause, and then Philip shook his head. “I can't do it!” he said. “She knows about the emeralds—I had to tell her, and the only hold I have over her to prevent her from repeating it is the fact that I could retaliate. She has bluffed me to a standstill, and now it is a question of silence for silence. What I threatened to tell has nothing to do with your case. It is just something I discovered by accident, soon after she came here, when I—I was rather gone on her. If that is your ultimatum, Crane, you must go ahead and ruin me, for she would if I spoke; it is a fifty-fifty break.”

Crane knew the unalterable stubbornness of the weak when they are cornered. Gazing into the face of Philip Dorrance he realized that it would be futile to argue further. With a shrug he dismissed the matter. “Very well. I will give you your chance, anyway. Go to your wife and make a clean breast of it and I will give you both my word to forget what I have learned. But she must not go about with any scandalous hints against Miss Dare in connection with my case and what led up to it. The young lady is absolutely innocent.”

“I understand, Crane, and—and thank you,” Philip answered brokenly. “I'd like to know how you got on to me, though.”

The detective smiled. “With Doyle's notes and my partial knowledge of what took place between you and Mrs. Carter in the glen, together with a pretty well-grounded suspicion as to the object upon which you had lately lavished more money than you could afford, it wasn't difficult to guess,” he replied. “Then, too, I watched you rather closely last night when your wife was telling me of her loss. If ever guilt was written upon a human countenance it was upon yours; your nervousness, your overanxiety to assume charge of the investigation yourself, your attempts to prevent your wife from openly accusing another—all told against you, too. I will remain here for the next hour. If, during that time, Mrs. Dorrance will telephone to me here and assure me that she knows the truth, I pledge you my word to say nothing.”

Leaving Philip grateful, but crushed with the prospect of the ordeal before him, Crane proceeded to the dining room, well pleased with the result of his long shot. He was halfway through his luncheon when a hand was laid upon the back of the empty chair opposite him and an urbane voice asked: “Lunching alone, Mr. Crane?' Perhaps you won't mind my joining you?”

Crane glanced up to find Ogden Bowles confronting him, smiling as though confident of his welcome. It seemed scarcely credible that this calm, cold, well-poised man could be the same who, with the face of a fiend, had driven so madly along the highroad from the glen on the previous day.

“Delighted to have you, Mr. Bowles,” he assented. A quick inspiration, born of that memory, had come to him, and he added: “I haven't forgotten your very kind ofter to give me any assistance in your power, and I may hold you to it.”

“Up a tree?” the other asked banteringly, as he seated himself. “I have been in many a tight corner on the market. I have had to think quickly and guess right, or it would have been all up with me, and you are cordially welcome to my amateur help whenever you want it.”

“Thanks! I appreciate the favor, but favors are dangerous things sometimes, don't you think?” the detective asked pointedly. “I do not mean any that you might do me, but I was thinking of the foolish, chivalrous things one sometimes does for a lady in distress.”

Bowles glanced sharply at him, but Crane's face betrayed no hint of what lay behind his words. “I am not very chivalrous, I am afraid.” This time Bowles' laugh was more obviously forced than before. “I don't think I would do anything I considered foolish, even for the sake of a lady. I am past the age, Mr. Crane.”

“We are most vulnerable when we feel that way,” Crane replied in an impersonal, meditative tone. “Still it isn't always wise to make an enemy of one woman to protect another.”

The broker laid down his knife and fork. “Just what are you driving at?” he demanded. “I haven't been protecting any woman at the expense of another if that is what you are hinting!” There was an underlying note of apprehension in his tones. The detective was quick to take advantage of it. “Oh, I was speaking in the abstract, I assure you,” he replied casually. “I was thinking of a very interesting conversation I have just had with Mr. Dorrance. Some one played a rather stupid practical joke on his wife yesterday afternoon, but she has very keen ears and a good memory for voices, so they didn't get away with it as successfully as they had believed. It was done to get back at her husband for his attitude toward another woman—but this is in strict confidence, of course.”

With the shrug of the born gambler, impassive in loss as in gain, Bowles sat back in his chair. “Now that you have told me so much, Mr. Crane—in confidence—hadn't you better finish?”

“Suppose you do that,” suggested the other quietly. “It won't go any farther, you know, but I am rather curious about it, and, when I am curious about anything, I usually get to the bottom of privately or otherwise.”

“You win!” Bowles said after a slight pause. “I think I do know something about what you are referring to, but that little cad had been forcing his attentions upon a certain lady beyond the limit of her endurance, and she had no other defense than to make use of some information she had gained about his wife. There wasn't much of a joke about it, Mr. Crane. Her knowledge was quite authentic—or so I understand he told the person to whom she appealed to act for her. She merely wanted to warn him through Mrs. Dorrance that she could create some scandal for them both if he did not cease to annoy her. I admit that it was a cattish, feminine sort of way of getting back, but there was nothing criminal about it, and I think it will prove effectual. Anyway her intermediary in the little passage at arms fell for it and will have to bear the result.”

“I do not believe that there will be any, except that which the instigator of the little revenge had desired, Mr. Bowles,” Crane reassured him. It was evident that the infatuated broker knew nothing of Dorrance's threat nor the secret which it involved, but had permitted his jealousy to be worked upon to the end that he might be used. “I wouldn't do any more impersonating over the telephone, though, if I were you, even to please a lady; that sort of thing is apt to lead to trouble, but it won't in this case because you have come clean. It may relieve your mind to know that Mrs. Dorrance has no idea who her informant was, and she never will if the matter goes no farther from the other side. It was just a little quick thinking and a right guess on my part.”

“Sold!” Bowles laughed a trifle shamefacedly. “I don't mind admitting that I acted on the impulse of the moment, and I have regretted it since. It was almost as caddish a thing as young Dorrance himself would be capable of doing. You can wager that no further move will be made by me or any one with whom I may have the slightest influence, and I appreciate your assurance that you will not disclose what you have learned. You turned the tables on me all right, Mr. Crane. To think that I was such a conceited idiot as to offer you my help!”

Before the detective could respond Henry entered and approached his chair. “Mrs. Dorrance is on the wire, sir. She says it is very urgent.”

With a word of apology to his companion Crane rose and followed the steward to the booth in the locker room, and the deep tones of Mrs. Dorrance, choked with emotion, came to him as he lifted the receiver.

“Mr. Crane—I have called you up to tell you that, since our conference, I have learned that the theory I expounded to you is not tenable, and I—er—I deeply regret having made assertions which I could not prove. I shall hold you to your promise to keep my confidence, and I am highly grateful for it.” Her voice broke in a throaty sob. “I have discovered that certain articles which I possessed were imitation, and I am going to replace them without taking any other action in the matter. I wish to avoid notoriety at all costs. The change was effected when the articles were taken into town over a month ago, presumably to be cleaned, but I imagine that you have already deduced that. I have decided, also—solely for the same reason of averting scandal—to keep another imitation which I thought was real when I purchased it. You will understand, I think.”

“Quite, Mrs. Dorrance. Without impertinence may I venture to say that I am truly sorry that this situation should have arisen? Perhaps it will all turn out better than you think, and please rest assured that I am honored by your confidence and shall not betray it.”

Cutting short her embarrassed thanks he returned to the dining room to find that his late companion had vanished, but a little folded note lay beside his own plate. He read:

Half an hour later the detective was rolling along the highway toward the Sowerbys' house over the hill. He was driving his own powerful car which he had brought out from town on the night of the murder. He passed Mrs. Carter's little cottage on the way and caught a fleeting glimpse of a soft blue gown and a figure clad in a brown suit, standing close together under the pergola, and he smiled to himself. The suit was identical in shade with that worn by Bowles at lunch, and the nature of the important business that had called him away was self-evident.

Rutherford Sowerby had motored to the station to meet some friends who were coming out from town, but Mrs. Sowerby received him on a sunlit veranda. She was dressed in a delicate pink which brought out the rose tint of her cheeks, and she looked like the veriest girl, as she lay back among the flowered-chintz cushions of her hammock. Crane could scarcely believe her the same woman who had received him in the trailing violet draperies, amid the exotic atmosphere of dim lights and musk. Once more he gave her grudging admiration for the artistry with which she endeavored to create impressions, but, as before, the result was faulty. The flush upon her cheeks was a trifle too high to be natural, and the sun revealed faint lines of maturity which belied the girlishness of her manner.

“It is like summer, isn't it, Mr. Crane?” she asked gushingly, as she patted a chair beside her invitingly. “Fancy weather like this at such a time in the year!”

“Indian summer,” he amended smilingly.

Mrs. Sowerby shuddered prettily in mock disgust. “Don't speak of it! I have lived in an atmosphere of Indian summer ever since I married! But what can I do for you, Mr. Crane? I hope you have not come to even mention that horrid affair of the other night. It seems ages ago, and I am doing my best to forget all about it.”

“I am sorry to be obliged to recall it to you, then, Mrs. Sowerby.” The detective's tone was very grave. “It would not have been necessary to do so, even momentarily, until the inquest, of course, if you had been quite frank with me yesterday.”

“1?” Her blue eyes widened childishly, but the color ebbed from her cheeks beneath his gaze, leaving patches of pinkish purple which showed ghastly in the sunlight. “I told you all I knew, which wasn't anything, really.”

“If you knew no more than you told me why did you say that you were in the conservatory when the shot was fired? I am sorry to contradict so charming a lady, but you were not there, Mrs. Sowerby. Where were you?”

She bit her lips, and her eyes narrowed, as she replied coldly: “You have been misinformed. I am not in the habit of being untruthful, Mr. Crane, and no one can prove that I was not there.”

“I am afraid that they can and will if you force the issue,” he insisted slowly. “What did you see or hear before or after that shot was fired, while you lay upstairs in one of the resting rooms? I am sorry to be so abrupt, but your husband will return at any moment, and, unless you are absolutely candid with me, I must appeal to him to persuade you.”

“How dare you!” Mrs. Sowerby sat up suddenly, but one trembling hand went to her throat. “I—I think this is positively insulting of you to attempt to coerce me. Who—who told you that they saw me up there?”

“I am not at liberty to say, but their evidence is incontrovertible. What did you see or hear that you were afraid to tell?”

Her shudder was very real this time, and for a moment she buried her face in her hands. When he looked up it was with the cowed, shifting glance of a trapped animal.

“A shadow!” she whispered. “I had turned Out the light in the room in which I was lying, but the door was half open, and directly against it, only an instant after the sound of the shot, it seemed to me—before I could collect myself to rise—I saw the shadow of a hand—a hand holding a revolver! It disappeared, and then I heard the sound of the window at the end of the hall opening and steps retreating—I don't know whether toward the rear or down the front stairs. That is all, really all, Mr. Crane!”

“Then why did not you tell me this in the first place, Mrs. Sowerby?” he asked.

“Because—because I thought I knew who it was and—and my own reputation was at stake.” She spoke still in that almost toneless whisper. “I—I thought I recognized the shadow. of that hand!”

ND the admission that you saw that shadow of a hand would hurt your reputation, Mrs. Sowerby? You mean that, if you were called upon to aid in the identification of the person who had passed down that hall, your reputation would suffer?”

“If I were dragged into the case in any way, forced to admit that I thought I knew who it was—the person would turn on me and ruin me!” she declared fiercely. “You don't know what it is to have an elderly, jealous husband and live surrounded by a lot of gossiping cats! At the merest breath of scandal against me that reached his ears Mr. Sowerby would cast me aside like an old glove, and he has money and influence. I have neither, and I have endured too much, all these years, to be robbed now of what I have gained. A woman has got to fight for herself in this world!”

The veneer of childishness was gone now, and at last he saw the real woman without pose; shrewd, mercenary, with the greed of one who had known stark necessity and meant now to cling to her fleshpots at all costs, yet willing to play with fire provided she were not burned. Maud Sowerby presented a distorted caricature of the self that her world knew.

“You saw only the hand? There was a cuff upon the wrist and a man's coat sleeve?” asked Crane.

“I—I do not know,” she said in a lower, more guarded tone. “I did not see the wrist, just the hand with the pistol. It was like a close-up in the motion pictures, only awful because it was real!”

“But the mere shadow of a closed hand would be almost impossible to recognize, as would the sound of unseen footsteps, unless the person had some peculiarity in his or her walk,” Crane expostulated. “You must have had some other reason for suspecting who had fired that shot, and I must remind you once more of the imminent arrival of your husband. You are fighting for yourself, Mrs. Sowerby, but I am fighting in the interests of justice, and I can afford to show no quarter. You will forgive me, but it is almost a miracle that no breath of gossip has reached Mr. Sowerby's ears, for it has reached mine from many sources, and this is no time to mince matters. Whom did you think Mr. Dorrance had killed?”

She started up with a little gasp and then sank back again, her stubby hands clenching and unclenching in a storm of resentment and apprehension. Then the sound of a motor reached them from the road, and she collapsed. “Oh, don't tell him! I have done nothing wrong except just to—to flirt a little, but Dorry took it seriously, and I was frightened to death! If you will only wait I will tell you everything!”

But the motor, instead of turning in at the drive, passed along the road, and its sound diminished in the distance.

“Tell me now, Mrs. Sowerby.” The detective's tone suggested more of command than request, and he added significantly: “There is still time, you see.”

She hesitated, and then the words came in a little rush. “I was bored, and Dorry amused me; that was all there was to it on my side, but the conceited fool actually thought that I was going to run away with him! We—we had a quarrel in the conservatory on the evening of the dance, and I told him that I had only been playing with him. Why, I didn't even care for him, and if I had I would not have given up my position to become a pariah for any man! He was furious and said that he had already burned both our bridges, and I told him that he couldn't burn mine, and, if he had got into some mess, as he had hinted, he would have to get out of it the best way he could, without trying to drag me in with him. He said he was desperate, but I remember that I replied I intended to protect myself no matter what happened to him.

“I was frightened, though, for I had never seen him quite so fiercely in earnest before, and I wondered what reckless, dreadful thing he had done. It spoiled my evening and gave me a headache, and that was why I went upstairs to lie down for a while. When I heard that shot I was sure for a moment that he had killed himself, and I was stiff with the horror of it! Then, when I saw the shadow of that hand, I thought that, perhaps, he had—had killed my husband in some quarrel over me, and I covered my eyes. That is why I saw only the hand holding the pistol, but I heard the opening of the window and the footsteps dying away down the hall, just as I have told you. Of course I am not accusing him, but he had hinted so violently, during that quarrel, of trouble coming to both of us that I did not doubt it was he. For a minute I couldn't have moved nor screamed if I had wanted to! Then some one shouted for lights from below, and I realized that I would be missed. I jumped up and ran downstairs, passing Mrs. Carter who was seated at the foot, and joined the others crowding out io the veranda. But I never reached there. I heard some one shrieking, and everything seemed to spin about and disappear in darkness around me. The next thing I knew I was lying on a bench which had been brought from the conservatory, and Mrs. Fraser was taking care of me. I haven't seen Dorry since, and I never will again if I can avoid it. I hate the very thought of him now when I think how foolish I have been—how nearly I allowed a silly flirtation to wreck my life!”

“But, when you discovered that it was the supposed club secretary who had been killed, why did you still think that Mr. Dorrance was guilty?” Crane asked. “Why do you think so now, Mrs. Sowerby?”

“Oh, I don't know what to think!” She struck one of the cushions with her clenched fist. “I knew that Dorry had spent more money in the last month than he could ever have wheedled out of that wife of his, and I suppose the idea came to me that there had been something—well, funny, about the club accounts in some way. I knew, too, that, if he were ever suspected and forced to give an accounting, he would tell about the attentions he has showered on me and work the old Adam stunt: 'The woman tempted me!' Now you know everything, but I never will admit that I told it to you! I never will admit that I was anywhere but in the conservatory, alone; when that shot was fired.”

“Are you quite sure that you saw that shadow of a hand, or that you heard those footsteps at all, Mrs. Sowerby?” Crane caught her shifting gaze. “Are you quite sure that there was any one upstairs but yourself?”

“Do you mean that I dreamed it? You don't suppose I would be stupid enough to mention it if I had, do you?”

“Oh, no. I think it must have been real enough, for the window was open, and the pistol was found outside where it had been thrown. But it was a woman's pistol, a little toylike thing, and the bullet taken from Doyle's breast fits it!”

Mrs. Sowerby rose, and her eyes above the garish patches of rouge were dilated with horror. “A woman's pistol!” she repeated in low, grating tones. “And you ask if I were not alone upstairs! Do you mean to insinuate that I killed him? Why, I scarcely knew that the man existed! Why should I want to—to murder our club secretary? Are there no limits to what people in your profession are permitted to say or do in your efforts to find a victim and make out a case?”

“But are you sure that you considered him merely the new clubhouse secretary? You were embarrassed and confused in his presence from the very day of his arrival. Did you not suspect him of being other than he appeared? You were afraid of him, you avoided him as much as possible. Did you not fear that some gossip might have reached your husband's ears, or those of Mrs. Dorrance? It is your creed that women must fight for themselves in this world. Some do it with blandishments, and some with bullets.”

“Great heavens, not I!” She shrank away from him as he, too, rose. “I did think, somehow, that the man was watching me; his eyes seemed to follow me all the time, particularly when Dorry and I were together, and I admit that I wondered once or twice if he might not be one of those shabby sneaks who spy out divorce evidence, but my conscience was clear. I had done no wrong, and if Mrs. Dorrance couldn't keep her husband to heel that was her own affair! I never thought seriously that it was my husband who had employed such a creature, for Mr. Sowerby is too big a man for that sort of thing. I never had a pistol or revolver in my hand in my life. I wouldn't even know how one worked. Who could have dared to hint at such a thing of me?”

The detective was saved the necessity of a reply by the second whirring of a motor, but this one did not pass. It turned in at the driveway, and, as it approached the house, Mrs. Sowerby's manner changed as though by magic. Her brow cleared, her eyes reassumed their former childlike stare, and she actually forced a dimple in either cheek as she held out her hand to the detective. “I must entertain my husband's guests, Mr. Crane. But, perhaps, you would care to stay and meet them?”

He accepted his dismissal and was about to act upon it, but he was too late. Sowerby rounded the corner of the house and insisted upon presenting his friends, a rotund financier, named Barnaby, and a young, but rising, mining engineer and geologist, Charles Wharton.

“Here's the very chap I was telling you about,” Sowerby announced. “Sorry I wasn't home when you arrived, Crane, but I suppose my wife has been chattering to you, eh? Now that you are here you must come in with us, if only for a few minutes. Maud will insist upon serving that infernal tea of hers, but there's still some of my private stock left, unless the butler has beaten me to it!”

Crane tried to escape, but, finding it impossible to do so, yielded with a good grace. Mrs. Sowerby appeared for a moment to greet her husband's friends, told the detective sweetly how glad she was that he had reconsidered his decision not to wait for their arrival, and then, at a growled hint from Rutherford Sowerby, she retired, while the four men repaired to the smoking room. Crane did not drink with the others, but he lighted a cigar and sat back studying the visitors.

Barnaby he put down as the average type of hard-headed business man who had made his pile, but the young engineer interested him. He was rugged and deeply tanned, with keen, humorous eyes and a frank, engaging manner. He had lately come North from the Texas oil fields, it appeared; he knew Ralph Fraser and was curious to hear all about the tragedy at the club.

When it had been thoroughly discussed the talk turned on celebrated murder cases in general. The financier had once been a star witness at the trial of a bank robber who had shot the watchman. After the financier's story Crane turned to the other guest: “Have you ever been present at a murder trial, Mr. Wharton?”

The engineer shook his head, smiling with a flash of white teeth in his sunburned face. “No, Mr. Crane. Nearest I ever came to it was the Walker affair in Dallas three or four years ago, but the woman was never brought to trial for lack of sufficient evidence.”

“'The Walker affair!'” Crane repeated.

“Don't you remember?” Wharton asked. “Guess it didn't make much of a stir up here, but it started out to be about the most sensational case of its kind that Dallas ever had, and then it ended in a fizzle. Young, pretty wife, rich, unattractive husband, good-for-nothing handsome admirer—the old triangle, with a raven-haired, modern Lucretia Borgia as its apex, supposed to have administered slow poison to friend husband. Anyway he died, and people began to talk. When it was found that he had left his wife only the third of his fortune, which the law demanded, the admirer vanished, and the young widow could not wholly conceal her chagrin. Finally she was arrested, but later she was released, and no one has heard of her since.”

“I remember reading about that, I think,” Barnaby remarked. “Did you say she was pretty? Didn't she have an odd sort of a deformity which gained her a nickname in the press?”

Wharton nodded. “'The girl with the rose-leaf ear,'” he quoted. “One ear was normal, but the other was undeveloped and crumpled, not unlike the leaf of a rose. The papers, when they could get a snapshot of her with that ear showing, played it up big. But she usually pulled down a curl or two over it to hide it, although it wasn't repulsive at all. Rather attractive than otherwise, I thought. I've often seen her, but I never met her.”

“Where do all these people who are acquitted of notorious crimes, or released through lack of evidence, go to?” demanded Sowerby. “Not one in a hundred lives it down; they disappear as though they had vanished from the face of the earth, and yet they must be dragging out existences somewhere.”

The financier laughed. “Remember Etta Wales, the girl who was acquitted of that murder in a taxi in Philadelphia some little time ago?” he asked. “She isn't exactly dragging out existence; she's one of the leading spirits in church and social circles in quite a big town in upper New York State, married to the richest man in the community, and a charming, if somewhat austere, hostess. I know for I have dined at her house more than once, and I don't think that any one has ever had a suspicion of her identity up there. You can't always tell!”

“Indeed you cannot,” Crane agreed, rose. “Gentlemen, I'm delighted to have met you and had this little talk, but I'm out here for work, you know, and I must be getting on. Mr. Sowerby, I'll see you at the inquest to-morrow.”

His host followed him out into the hall. “Was there anything that you wanted to see me about particularly?” he asked. “Glad to be of any help that I can.”

“Then have you a private phone in a booth or closet somewhere?” Crane asked. “There is a message that I have got to get through to town and which I forgot all about at the club. I wouldn't impose on you, but my chief is waiting on the other end of the line for it.”

“Certainly! Right this way in that closet under the stairs! It is a direct wire with no other extensions in the house, so you won't be disturbed nor listened in on.”

“Nobody would hear anything very sensational!” Crane replied as he stepped into the closet. “It is just a report on some notes which poor Doyle left behind him in his office.”

The smile faded from his lips, however, when he had closed the door upon his host, and his voice tensed with suppressed excitement when he gave the number of the agency in the city. It seemed an age before he managed to get O'Hare himself on the wire.

“That you, chief? Crane speaking. I want a man out here on the first train with all the clippings we've got relative to the Walker murder case in Dallas, three or four years ago.... Yes, I know it never went to trial.... Say, wasn't one of our boys down there about that time?... Who, Lovell? Can you get hold of him?... Good! Send him down with the clippings and tell him to make it snappy!”

He rang off before O'Hare could get in any remarks of his own, and, stepping out of the closet, he found Sowerby waiting for him by the front door. The latter would have detained him hospitably once more, but Crane excused himself firmly and took his leave. The gravel swirled from under the wheels of his car, as he tore down the driveway and careened out upon the highroad leading to the club, and his racing thoughts kept pace with it.

Mrs. Carter! Why had he not considered her as a dominant figure in the case before? He had sent a man down to Charlotte to look her up, it is true, but merely to see that the story, which she had told of her early life, was correct, as a matter of routine. But had he? He recalled now that it had struck him as odd from the first that a woman of her evident good taste and artistic sense should have worn her hair in a fashion which was so obviously unbecoming, and he had concluded that it must be to conceal some deformity. That was the reason, when he had sent Walsh to town with that message to the chief for a man to go to Charlotte, he had mentioned the ears as a means of identifying the erstwhile Nina Shirley, and he spoke of black hair instead of red because on his visit to her, while they stood together in her sunlit garden, a beam of light darting through the trees had rested for a moment on her head, and he saw that the silky strands of auburn were distinctly dark at the roots.

Could it be that the secret which Philip Dorrance had discovered concerning her had been that of the “rose-leaf” ear, and had he remembered the accounts of the case and held her identity over her head in his attempt to blackmail her?

“You speak of mercy!” Her words came back to him in a swift rush: “Women have shown me scant mercy in my life.” And again: “The world is wide, and Broadlawns is only a tiny corner of it!”

Was she one of the driven ones of the earth, of whom Sowerby had spoken, who, acquitted or freed by the law, were yet eternally branded and cast out by society, living in seclusion and fancied security, only to be forced to move on when their identity became known?

On reaching the club he went directly to his room and paced back and forth for an hour or more, piecing together fact and theory. Doyle had been in Texas three or four years before, and Mrs. Carter had told Crane herself that Doyle seemed to think he had seen her somewhere. Could it be that in the expression of this thought he had signed his own death warrant? She had had grim experiences with detectives if she were, indeed, the “Mrs. Walker” of that former case. Had she recognized the type, perhaps even recognized the man himself through his disguise and fancied him upon her trail?

A new life was opening before her. She had a certain position and the prospect of a marriage which, at least, meant congeniality and added prosperity. Was she the type of woman to permit all that to be swept away from her when, by one daring act, she might avert exposure? Once married to Bowles he could not discard her even if he discovered that unfortunate episode, provided she had legally changed her name to that which she now bore, for the law had freed her.

The afternoon shadows lengthened, and twilight came while Crane mentally anathematized the infrequency of Sunday trains and impatiently awaited the arrival of Lovell with the press clippings. Wharton, the engineer, had said that the papers had played up any snapshots they could obtain of the suspected woman with the crumpled ear exposed. Surely among the clippings there would be one or more such reproductions, and dyed hair and a lapse of a few years could not bring unrecognizable changes. A glance at the pictures would tell him whether he was off upon another wild-goose chase, or had at last hit upon the truth.

With dusk there came a knock upon his door, and he sprang eagerly to open it. Samuel Estridge stood upon the threshold.

“Heavens, man, what are you doing without a light?” the attorney asked. “I trust I am not intruding on any very serious train of thought, but you promised to look in on me at my lodge to-day, and I waited as long as I could. Since the mountain did not come to Mahomet, behold Mahomet has come to the mountain, bag and baggage—or as much as I could crowd into my car! I am a neighbor of yours now, Crane.”

The detective had switched on the light, and now he gestured hospitably to a chair. “Come in, do, Mr. Estridge. Delighted to have you,” he said. “I'm sorry about not calling on you, but, to he perfectly honest, I came by accident upon a point which may loom up big in this case, and it temporarily drove everything else from my mind. But what is this about being a neighbor of mine? Do you mean that you have left your lodge and moved to the club?”

Estridge nodded. “It is not my lodge any longer, but has become honeymoon villa,” he announced. “I have turned over, together with my scandalized cook and manservant, to those two infants, Gerald Landon and Alice, for a month. Then they will move to town, and Gerald will enter my office; shouldn't wonder if he did mighty well with the proper backing, and I'm going to see that he gets that. Sowerby will be like a bear with a sore head, I am afraid, and I cannot think of a simile that would be fitting for old lady De Forest's state of mind, but I can't help that. Those children are going to have a chance for a little happiness before they start to 'buck the game' together as Gerald expresses it. He told me how you discovered their romance.”

“How did you?” Crane laughed.

“I didn't. Gerald came to me for advice this afternoon, and I made him return to the Frasers', where he had left her temporarily, and bring Alice straight to the lodge; I was de trop, and that is the reason why I could wait there no longer for you. But what about this new point in your case? Do you feel inclined to discuss it? I heard that you lunched here with Bowles to-day; he's not connected with it, is he?'

Before the detective could reply there came a second knock upon the door, and this time it was Lovell himself, armed with a huge brief case. Estridge rose, but Crane stopped him.

“Don't go just yet, Mr. Estridge. This is Lovell, one of our operatives from the head office in town and a pal of poor Jim Doyle. Did you bring the clippings?”

“Right here.” The operative opened his brief case upon the bed, and a mass of newspaper cuttings fell out. “Nothing new turned up here about that Walker business, has there? These are from the principal Dallas papers.”

“Dallas?” the attorney asked, as Crane bent eagerly over the clippings. “Do you mean the case of the Walker woman who was arrested on suspicion of having poisoned her husband?”

“Yes, sir,” Lovell responded. “Doyle and I were in Dallas at the time, and we saw her at the inquest. She was let off later for lack of evidence, but the case is still open, and it is a rule of our office to collect and keep all clippings in big criminal cases until they are definitely closed, one way or another.”

“Mr. Estridge”—Crane had straightened and held a double-column strip of newspaper to the light for a minute of close scrutiny—“you were asking me just now about the new point which I thought I had discovered. If you will look at the face pictured here I think you will find your answer.”

AMPLIGHT was gleaming softly through amber-tinted curtains on the lower floor of Mrs. Carter's pretty cottage. A high-powered car drew up at a discreet distance down the road, and three men alighted.

“Better come up to the house with us, sheriff; you can wait with Lovell on the porch,” Crane suggested, as he switched off the lights.

“You didn't think I was going to sit back here and snooze with the warrant in my pocket, did you?” the sheriff asked, easing his stout body through the door of the tonneau. “Don't you forget to fix it so that the front door is left open behind you, after her maid lets you in.”

They proceeded up the driveway, and when they were close to the house Crane halted. A low-geared, long-hooded runabout, whose lines he recalled, stood in the side road.

“Bowles must have stayed to dinner. He wasn't at the club, and that looks like his car parked there.”

“It is,” Sheriff Coburn replied grimly. “I've taken him up enough times for speeding, to know it, all right!”

“That is awkward, but we ought to have anticipated it,” the detective remarked, adding: “Which is the drawing-room, sheriff?”

“The row of windows to the left of the front door.”

“Then come on. I'll manage to disarrange the curtains at one of those windows so that you can look in. When I give you the high sign you will know what to do.”

They ascended the steps of the little porch as lightly as possible, and Crane rang the bell while the other two crouched in the shadows. Presently a trim maid appeared and, after a murmured word or two, admitted him, closing the door tight, but almost immediately it opened again, and a knifelike ray of light streamed forth.

“He's fixed the door, all right!” said the sheriff with satisfaction. “Now watch the windows and see if any of the curtains move.”

To the waiting Lovell it seemed hours before the draperies at one of the windows in the center of the row were swept aside as though by a careless hand, and, although they fell back into place, there remained a narrow aperture through which they could obtain a view of the whole room.

Ogden Bowles was seated a little apart, as though taking no share in the conversation, but he was watching every move through narrowed lids. In the center of the room Mrs. Carter leaned back among the cushions on a low couch, and Crane occupied a chair facing her.

“Look!” The sheriff nudged his companion. “The light of that lamp is shining full on her now, and you can see her plain. Is it the same woman?”

“I couldn't swear to it from here,” Lovell responded after an interval. “Red hair does make a difference, and remember I only saw her a couple of times, years ago. Oh, what is Crane doing?”

A tall vase of autumn flowers rested upon a stand beside the couch upon which Mrs. Carter was seated. With an awkward gesture the detective overturned it. Bowles sprang to catch it, but he collided with Crane, and the latter, in putting out his hand to save himself, touched Mrs. Carter's hair. She shrank back, but not before he had swept aside the smooth coil which was banded down tightly over her left ear, exposing for an instant the tiny, crumpled lobe of pink flesh. At the same moment he motioned almost imperceptibly toward the windows.

“Come on! That's our signal,” the sheriff exclaimed beneath his breath.

“And that's the woman, too!” added Lovell. “Easy now! Don't open the door any wider than you can help.”

They slipped through the front door and down the hall to the drawing-room. They stationed themselves beside the threshold, just outside the range of vision of those within.

“It doesn't matter in the least about the vase,” Mrs. Carter was saying. “But my hair! You must pardon me for a moment while I go and rearrange it, and I will send Letty to mop up the water which was spilled.”

“Don't bother about your hair, Mrs. Carter. It is too late now.” Crane spoke with deliberate significance.

“'Too late?'” she asked.

“Yes. You did not wear it like that down in Dallas four years ago, did you? But your name was not 'Carter' then, either.”

“What do you mean?” she demanded sharply. “Who is this mysterious woman I am accused of being? Ogden, I don't understand it! First Doyle and now Mr. Crane”

“And Doyle was shot,” Crane interrupted her. “This is the woman I know you to be! I have just proved it by creating a little diversion so that I might lift the hair with which your left ear is covered.”

There was a rustle of paper, a little cry, and then the sound of a man's half-suppressed oath.

“Don't believe him, Ogden! Don't look at that picture! It is not I!” Her voice rose in an agonized wail. “The man must be mad!”

“Lovell!” called Crane. “Sheriff Coburn!”

The operative entered with the sheriff at his heels, and the woman confronted them, both hands nervously clutching her blouse.

“Do you know this lady?” Crane demanded of the operative. “Have you ever seen her before?”

“Yes, sir. I saw her in Dallas four year ago. She was under arrest for murdering her husband by poison. Her hair was black then, but it is Mrs. Walker,” Lovell responded promptly. “I'd swear to it anywhere. Look out! Stop her, somebody!”

With one last, despairing glance at Bowles' stricken, but implacable, face the woman had darted around the table, crashing the chairs behind her to impede the progress of the three men who sought to seize her. Then she disappeared out a small side door, slamming it after her.

“It works with a spring lock,” Crane exclaimed, as he tried vainly to wrench it open. “Help me to break it down, Lovell!”

It required the united efforts of all three, however, to batter the stout little door down. Bowles stood where he had been when she had made her hurried flight, and he was staring with dazed eyes at the pictured face in the newspaper clipping which he held in his hands.

Just as the sheriff and the two detectives got the door down at last and dashed out upon the veranda they heard the humming of a powerful motor, and the low-geared runabout shot past them and down the drive, gathering momentum as it fled like a live thing.

“Quick! She's taken Bowles' car. If she is anything like as good a driver as he we will have a race for it!” Crane exclaimed as they rushed across the lawn and burst through the hedge to where their own car waited.

“At the rate she was going when she turned into the road, if she isn't a good driver, it means death,” Lovell declared. “Come on, sheriff.”

They piled into the car, and Crane settled himself down grimly behind the wheel. Far in advance of them, before he started his own motor, the detective could hear the diminishing roar of the car ahead, and he knew that it meant indeed a race.

“She ain't aiming to go through the village at that rate, is she?” Sheriff Coburn asked, as they rolled down the road with ever-increasing speed. “No, she's turning off at the Corners and heading, I guess, for the station at Watkins, to catch the midnight express. A woman in a blue dress, without any hat nor coat, couldn't get far! Great Scott! I never went so fast I couldn't breathe, before!”

Then he lapsed into silence. When they took the turning at the Corners with a swirling skid of the heavy back wheels an unconscious groan of dismay escaped him.

The road before them was straight and fairly level, and they were gaining on the car ahead. The moon, which had emerged from the cloudlike haze of earlier evening, showed them the flutter of a blue gown, as the runabout rocked from side to side of the road and seemed scarcely to touch the ground.

All at once the sheriff gave a sudden cry of horror. “Catch her before she gets to the next turn of the road, or she'll be killed, sure!” he said, bending forward to call into Crane's ear. “It's the Triangle Turn, the sharpest in all the country round!”

“Doing my best!” called back the detective. “Hold fast! I'm going to let her out!”

Inch by inch and yard by yard they crept up to the car ahead, but, just when they seemed about to overtake it, it would give a sudden spurt and leap forward, scudding like a cloud before a gale. Once they caught a glimpse of the white patch which was her face as she glanced over her shoulder to see how close her pursuers were, but her car gave a hideous lurch and careened almost across the road, and she did not look back again.

“There's the Triangle just ahead!” shouted the sheriff. “Good heavens, can't we stop her! If you don't—but you'll have to slow up, or we'll be done for ourselves!”

If Crane heard he gave no answer. He was watching that flutter of blue whipping the wind from the pursued car, gauging its speed and its chances of rounding that turn so menacingly near. He knew that he could not overtake her now until that point in the road was reached, and he slowed down.

The runabout shot forward as though sped from a cannon's mouth, and suddenly its lone occupant seemed to be aware of her own danger. A half-smothered cry was borne back to them, and then gamely the runabout swerved to essay the turn.

“Can she make it?” Lovell asked. “No! She's over!”

There had come a sudden sharp crack from the runabout, and it reeled madly to the side of the road, overturning in the ditch with a sickening crash. The detective halted his own car by a straightaway dive through a fence and into a meadow of low, marshy ground. Here he circled and slowed down, coming to a stop by the broken fence. The three men with electric torches leaped from it and crossed the road to where the wreck of the runabout lay, one white arm and hand streaked with crimson, protruding from beneath it. She did not move nor seem to breathe when they lifted the car from her and dragged her out. Lovell procured some water from a near-by brook and dashed it over her face, and then her eyelids fluttered and parted, and a faint moan escaped her.

She gazed bewilderedly up at the three for a moment, and then consciousness returned, and she spoke faintly: “This is ... better so. I am Nell Walker. I suspected that Doyle was a detective ... that new proof had been found against me down in Dallas. As soon as I was sure I shot him. I stood near the foot of the staircase and fired, then I ran back and threw up my stool ... out of—the hall window. When the lights went up I was sitting on the stairs where I had been standing. No one—knew I had even moved.”

“Don't you try to stalk [sic] now, ma'am,” the sheriff implored her soothingly. “Are you in any pain?”

“No. That's the odd part of it, and my brain is clear, but I can't move a muscle. It must be my spine that is broken. My dear Mr. Coburn, if you and Mr. Crane want the truth from my lips you will have to let me talk now and talk quickly. I think you understand. I did kill my husband in Dallas ... in the manner and for the motive ... that the coroner tried to establish. I had known the real Nina Shirley ... in Charlotte years ago ... we had been at school together, and we always corresponded until my trouble. I kept track of her, though, and when she died, just before I came here, I took her name and became her.”

Her eyes were fixed on Crane, who had been writing rapidly on a leaf torn from his notebook, and now, as he looked up expectantly, she smiled. “My confession? I've heard of such things. But I think that is all. Those lights you are carrying ... gone out, haven't they?... And what is the matter ... with the moon?... Everything growing dark.”

The three men glanced from their gleaming electric torches to the brilliant moonlight and then at each other and understood. The sheriff felt vaguely about his head to remove the cap which had blown off at the first turning, while Crane slipped a pen between the woman's nerveless, stained fingers and guided them as they made a wavering cross below what he had written.

Her head seemed to settle into the coat which Lovell had folded beneath it, and her eyelids drooped. They thought her already gone when she spoke again.

“My husband ... no defense, but with Doyle ... if I hadn't been absolutely sure ... would never have ... pulled trigger.”

She sighed gently and was still. For a long moment no one spoke, and then Crane said slowly:

“Doyle never even suspected her identity, and you both know why he was here. Her hidden guilt made her self-conscious. It was not she, but her own conscience which pulled that trigger.”