The Marathon Mystery Part 4

PART IV
DAWN

​

The Beach at Martinique at Sunset.

 

CHAPTER I

A Thread Breaks

IT was not until the Sunday evening following Tremaine’s departure that I found myself alone with Cecily and in a position to begin that conversation from which I hoped so much.

In the morning I had taken her to mass at the cathedral, where she had listened with rapt countenance. In the afternoon, the weather being very pleasant, we drove out to the Bronx to see the animals and the conservatories, in which she was as interested as any child. In fact, I found myself treating her more and more as a child. She was essentially one in character—self-willed, easily downcast and as easily elated; and though she was religious to a degree amounting almost to superstition, it seemed never to have occurred to her that there was anything wrong or irregular in her manner of life. She was frankly Tremaine’s mistress, evidently cherished a deep affection for him, and, I doubt not, would have been faithful to him under any but the most extraordinary temptation.

She had arrayed herself, that Sunday evening, in the same garments she had worn the first night I had met her—the gorgeous costume of the belle affranchie, in which she was most at home—but I had grown more accustomed to her and sat down near her without any great bedazzlement. She was lying ​on the couch, engaged in rolling cigarettes with remarkable skill and celerity, and had quite a pile on the tabouret beside her. I sat and watched the supple fingers and the red, red lips, and the dark face, changing with every wave of feeling.

“There,” she said, at last, in that queer, chipped soft Creole which defies transcription, and she pushed away papers and tobacco. “That will do for this evening. Take one, chè.”

I took one and lighted it. I knew that the term of endearment had no meaning.

“My friend,” she said suddenly, turning to me with intent gaze, “do you know where doudoux has gone?”

“No,” I answered, “he did not tell me. He said only that his business was calling him away.”

“Business! Ohé! And you believe that?”

“Why shouldn’t I believe it, Cecily?”

“If it were merely business, he could have taken me along. Tambou! I would have hidden in some little, little corner! I would not have been in the way.”

She flung her cigarette from her with a swift fury, not looking to see where it struck. I got up and stamped it out. She burst into sudden laughter as she watched me—the mirth of the careless South at the careful North.

“All the same,” she said, with conviction, “he is growing weary of me; I annoy him; I can see it. It was, of course, inevitable. Soon he will be sending me away. Ohé!” and she stretched her arms above her head with that gesture I had seen before. “Ah ​well! d’amour, de rires, et d’oublis!” and she laughed, but I fancied there was a sob beneath the laughter. “At least, I shall be again at St. Pierre.”

“And you still long for it?”

“Oh, long for it! So would you, chè, if you had ever lived there.”

A line from Mandalay flashed into my head—

“If you’ve ’eard the East a-callin’, why, you don’t ’eed nothin else”

and looking at her, I caught a glimpse of that compelling fascination. Preachers and lecturers are fond of pointing out that no great nation ever came from the tropics—but the people who live there have their compensations.

Suddenly there came a soft hissing from the little cage over the radiator.

“Ah, I must feed Fê-Fê—she is calling me,” she cried, and she sprang up, ran to the next room, and came back with a little wine in a glass.

I stood and watched her without being greatly impressed. Fê-Fê seemed very harmless and lethargic—evidently the climate of New York, even though mellowed by the radiator, did not agree with her.

“She is not at all well,” said Cecily, as she put her back into her cage. “It is only the warmth of the wine that keeps her alive. I shall take her back to St. Pierre with me—there she will again be happy. Tambou! and so shall I! One is always shivering here—the whole world is so cold—the sky, the sea, even the sun!”

“Of course Tremaine will go back with you,” I ​assured her; I was wondering if she really suspected his intention.

“No, he will not,” she said decidedly; “but,” she added, with an electric flash of the eyes, “he may come in time.”

I lighted another cigarette.

“Where did you meet him, Cecily?”

“He came to St. Pierre three, four years ago. He saw me one day standing at the door of my house in the Rue Peysette.”

“Do you know where he came from?”

“No; it mattered nothing to me.”

“He never talked about his past?”

“His past? No, no. What was it to us? We had a pretty, pretty place at Fond-Corré. Tambou! I wish I was there now!”

“You were happy there?”

“Yes—except for the times doudoux was in his black spells.”

“His black spells?”

“Yes—oh, then everyone ran from him—even I. He was terrible-raving and cursing Missié Johnson.”

“Johnson?” I repeated, with a sudden leap of the heart. “Who was he, Cecily?”

“He was doudoux’s zombi,” she anwered with conviction, and crossed herself.

“Then he didn’t live at Fond-Corré?”

“At Fond-Corré? Oh, no! He was a zombi—in the air, in the earth, everywhere. Doudoux would fight with him an hour at a time. Oh, it was terrible!”

​I leaned back in my chair and watched the smoke from my cigarette circling upwards. I remembered the letter that had been tattooed on the arm of the man killed in suite fourteen. So Tremaine had some cause to hate him—he had helped him, had supplied him with whiskey, with money, through fear and not through friendship. To establish that was to take another step forward.

“Did he have those spells often, Cecily?” I asked, at last.

“Oh, no; sometimes not for months. Then, phut! the zombi would charm him.”

“Charm him?”

“With a little scrap of paper, yes. There would come a letter; doudoux would open it; always in it there would be a little piece of paper. Sometimes it had writing on it, sometimes printing, as though it had been cut from a newspaper. Then, tambou! doudoux‘s face would grow black, he would tear the paper into little, little bits, uttering curses the most terrible, and we would all run!”

Clippings from a newspaper! Here was a coincidence. But I cudgelled my brain vainly—I could form no theory as to why a clipping should cause those fits of rage.

“The last one, though, did not give him a spell,” she added, after a moment… “We were watching the sun set out across the water when Dodol brought the letter to him. This time it was printing and writing both; I got up, ready to flee, for I thought that would be twice as bad; but no. He sat reading it and his eyes glistened; then he sent me running for his hat ​and hurried away to St. Pierre. When he came back, he told me that we were to come at once to New York.”

It was exasperating. I felt that the secret lay just under my hand, and yet I could not grasp it. I seemed to be revolving round and round about it, without getting any nearer. What could the message be which brought Tremaine hot foot to New York?

That was the question to which there seemed no possibility of finding the answer at present; besides I thought it well to lead the talk away from Tremaine for a while, or even Cecily, unsuspecting as she was, might guess my purpose. So I turned to another point.

“You have some very pretty jewelry, Cecily,” I said, touching the great brooch of gold that gleamed at her throat.

She laughed like a pleased child.

“Yes—are they not pretty, chè? Let me show you,” and springing from the couch, she ran into her bedroom. In a moment she was back again, a box of inlaid ebony in her hands.

“See!” she cried, and threw back the lid.

Indeed they were worth seeing, and it was not wholly to disarm her suspicions, if she had any, that I lingered over them. At last, I came to the piece I wanted.

“Here is a beautiful pin,” I said. “An opal in a circle of diamonds,” and I held it up to the light. “But see, Cecily; one of the diamonds is missing. Have you lost it?”

“Doudoux lost it,” she answered. “He wore it ​sometimes as a pin for his scarf. Tambou! I was angry when I found it gone. You should have heard me!”

“I have a diamond,” I said, getting out my pocket-book, “that might do to replace it. Let us see if it will fit.”

I unwrapped the little brilliant and applied it to the break in the circle. Then my heart fell. It was evident in an instant that it had not come from there—it was much smaller than the other stones,—differently cut…

I have seldom experienced a more poignant pang of disappointment. I seemed to have lost more than I had gained. Where, then, had this diamond come from? Who was it had dropped it in suite fourteen? I was lost, confused, utterly at sea. And a moment before, I had been so confident! Well, it was right; it was just! This would be the fate of the whole silly, flimsy fabric we were trying to build against Tremaine.

“No, it will not do,” I stammered, at last. “It is too small,” and I returned it to my pocket. “I shall have to get you another trinket, Cecily.”

She thanked me with a child’s exuberance, then put away her jewels and came back to the divan, talking of many things. But my attention wandered; I answered her mechanically, or not at all; I felt the need of being alone and setting my discoveries in order; of finding out whether I had gained or lost ground. In any event, we should have to take a fresh start—the trail we had been following led nowhere—ended in a swamp.

Cecily perceived my indifference in a moment—she ​had a temperament which seemed to scent instinctively every change of feeling—and she threw her arms above her head with that gesture of weariness which I had seen before.

“Adié, chè,” she said abruptly.

“Good-night, Cecily,” I answered, rising, smiling in spite of myself at my curt dismissal, at her change of tone.

“Bon-Dié ké beni ou!”

“And you, Cecily.”

As I turned to the door, I heard the rustle of her gown as she arose from the couch. My hand on the knob, I glanced around, expecting to find her at my elbow. Instead, she was kneeling, with bowed head, before her Virgin.

CHAPTER II

Treasure Trove!

IT seemed that my sudden abstraction had offended Cecily more deeply than I imagined, for when I knocked at her door next evening, she told me curtly that she was not feeling well and intended going early to bed. So I went back to my room, rather glad of the chance of an evening to myself.

Besides, Cecily was a good deal like a highly flavoured dish—to be fully enjoyed only at intervals. And, too, there was only one point as yet unsettled—where she and Tremaine had been the night of the murder. That, I felt, could be cleared up without much difficulty the first time she received me, which would probably be not later than tomorrow. I had a premonition that that line of inquiry, too, would lead nowhere—that Cecily would prove, by a word, that neither she nor Tremaine had been anywhere near the Marathon at the hour of the crime. In any event I had plenty of time, and I could spend this evening very profitably in weighing and classifying my discoveries; in getting a fresh start.

As I opened my door, I noticed it scraped on the carpet, and an examination showed me that the carpet had come loose along the sill. I stepped to the speaking tube and blew down it.

“Hello!” called up a voice in a moment.

​“Is that you, Higgins?”

“Yes, sir.”

“This is Mr. Lester. Come up after a while, will you? I’ve a little job up here I want you to do.”

“All right, sir; will half an hour do?”

“Oh, yes; any time this evening.”

I got out pipe, tobacco, and matches and sat down in my most comfortable chair. I was no longer so discouraged as I had been the evening before. On the whole, I told myself, I had progressed — I had succeeded in forging the chain more tightly about Tremaine, in strengthening it in many places. I could show certainly:

1. — That he knew Thompson and had lied about it.

2. — That he apparently hated him.

3. — That he had come to New York on the same boat with him, and probably on the same errand.

4. — That Thompson had joined him as soon as released from jail.

On paper, I had to admit, the chain appeared a good deal weaker than I had thought it. There were many gaps — indeed, now that I looked at it, it seemed to consist largely of gaps. Objections to the theory of Tremaine’s guilt loomed larger and larger. One of the weightiest was Miss Croydon’s attitude toward him — that seemed unexplainable. The man she described as the murderer was quite unlike Tremaine in appearance. Was she, then, shielding him? But why should she do that? Above all, if he were guilty of such a crime, would she have consented to his admission to the Delroy family? And again, if she feared him, why not denounce him to the police, or at least ​threaten to do so? That would remove him from her path once and forever.

This last question seemed so unanswerable that I paused to look at it again, for it was evident that one really insuperable objection must invalidate the whole theory. By the commission of a crime, especially of a crime so serious as this one, would he not place himself as much in Miss Croydon’s power as she could possibly be in his? If she were still in his power, then, he had committed no crime; and if he had committed no crime, why, of course, he had not killed Thompson. But in that case, who had? Where had that diamond come from?

I knocked out my pipe and filled it again. I felt a good deal as though I was wandering around and around in a maze; I was getting a little dizzy.

If Tremaine had not killed Thompson, I asked myself again, who had? Not Miss Croydon! To suppose that a delicately reared girl would smash a man over the head with a piece of pipe was to descend to the ridiculous. Yet if he had attacked her, she might have nerved herself to do it. But that was absurd, too, since, admittedly, she had a pistol in her pocket and was not afraid to use it. Who else, then? Jimmy the Dude? But he had already proved an alibi; besides, a motive was wanting.

Then I thought of Cecily. Could she have been the assassin? Certainly it was not impossible; that last savage act, that shooting of an unconscious man, fitted in, somehow, with my estimate of her character. She might have done that. But why should Miss Croydon seek to shield her? Was it Cecily who ​possessed the secret? Was there some connection between them? I remembered the other famous case in which I had been engaged—must I look for the same solution here? Was there a blood relationship between Cecily and Miss Croydon? Clearly, such a thing was possible; I even fancied that one, knowing them both, might be able to detect a subtle resemblance. I closed my eyes and endeavoured to recall the features of Miss Croydon’s portrait; her face had much in common with Cecily’s. Both were dark, both were…

A knock at the door brought me out of my thoughts. I opened it and found the janitor standing there.

“It’s nothing very much, Higgins,” I said, “but I thought you’d better fix it before it got any worse. The carpet has come loose here along the door. Three or four tacks are all it needs.”

He stepped over the threshold and looked at it.

“All right, sir,” he said. “I’ll fix it in th’ mornin’. Them fellers what put th’ carpet down didn’t half do their work. I tacked a loose place down over there by th’ wall jest afore you moved in.”

“Where was it?” I asked as calmly as I could.

“Right here by this angle,” he said, indicating the place with his foot. “I think maybe I’d better go all around th’ walls t’-morrer.”

“Perhaps it would be best,” I said; “thank you,” and I closed the door upon him.

The next instant I was down on my hands and knees tearing away the carpet, my blood singing in my ears. I had found them—the clippings—it was here they must be hidden; but for those chance tacks ​driven by the janitor, Tremaine would have had possession of them long ago, and perhaps we should never have penetrated the mystery of Thompson’s death. Now, it would be laid bare before us—the whole secret! What a little thing it was that had saved us!

I had the carpet loose—I turned it back, and there they lay, that little roll of clippings, just as they had been taken from Thompson’s pocket-book. They were to tell us the whole story—we could not again be led astray. I was quite calm again. I picked them up carefully and laid them on my desk. Then I washed my hands and filled my pipe. There was a certain exquisite pleasure in holding myself back from them, in tantalising myself, in deferring for a moment or two the revelation which was to come.

But at last I sat down and spread them out on the desk before me. There were twelve of them, some only a few lines in length, others of half a column. Of one there were four copies, but of the others only one apiece. They were tattered and stained from long carrying; some were in English and some were in French, and they were dated from places as far apart as Dieppe, New York, Sydney.

I piled them carefully beside me and started hopefully on the task of deciphering them—of piecing together the story they had to tell me. But the farther I proceeded, the more my spirits fell: for they told no story, they seemed to have no relation to each other—no common thread. Apparently, they had been gathered aimlessly at haphazard to satisfy the whim of the moment. One chronicled a wreck at sea; ​another, a bank robbery; a third, an escape from prison; a fourth was merely a marriage notice; a fifth told of a row in a sailors’ dive, and so on down the list They were about different people—friends of Thompson’s, perhaps; none of them had any connection with Tremaine; they told no story, furnished no clew, shed not a ray of light on the mystery—they were absolutely worthless.

I laid them down in despair. Yet if they were worthless, why had Miss Croydon taken them? Why had Tremaine sought for them? Were they mistaken, too? Had they imagined the clippings told a secret which in fact they did not tell? But perhaps they did tell it—perhaps I had overlooked it. They must have some connection with the tragedy? Why could I not perceive it?

I ran through them feverishly again, but with no better result. At last I laid them down and took up my pipe. I must submit them to a keener brain than mine. If Godfrey were only here…

I heard a step come down the hall, stop at my door. Someone knocked.

I hastily stuffed the clippings into my pocket and opened the door. But it was not Tremaine who stood there—it was Godfrey.

“Well, of all things!” I cried. “I was just wishing for you. Come in.”

With that quiet smile of his, he stepped over the threshold.

“That must mean you’ve got some new problem to solve,” he said, still smiling.

“I have; the worst yet; impenetrable as the counte​nance of the Sphinx. But first give me your coat and hat.”

They were dripping with water, and for the first time I heard the rain beating savagely against the windows.

“I happened to be across the street talking with Simmonds,” he said, “and I thought I’d run over and see you a moment.”

“When did you get back from Washington?”

“Just this evening, and I’ve got to put in to-morrow at Boston, worse luck!”

I handed him a cigar and took one myself. I confess that the match with which I lighted it was not wholly steady.

“Come,” said Godfrey, smiling in sympathy with my excitement, “what’s the great discovery? Some news from the house-party?”

“No; I haven’t heard a word from the house-party.”

“What is it, then? Out with it.”

“Godfrey,” I cried, “I’ve found the clippings!” and I plunged my hand into my pocket and drew them forth.

He was out of his seat in an instant.

“The clippings! Not the ones——”

“The very ones!” I nodded triumphantly.

“Let me see them; but wait,” and he held himself back. “I confess you surprised me, Lester—I wasn’t expecting such a bomb. This is great luck. Where did you find them?”

I told him of Higgins’s chance remark that had put me on the track, and in the same breath related what Cecily had told me of Tremaine and his encounter with his zombi.

​“Good boy!” Godfrey commended when I had finished. “You’re worth all the rest of us put together. You see, we’re beginning to get the threads in hand. Now bring the clippings over here to the desk under the light.”

I laid them on the desk and he sat down before it.

“But here,” he said, starting up again, “you’ll want to see them, too——”

“No, no,” I protested. “Sit down. I have seen them,” and then suddenly I remembered how I had been disappointed. They contained no secret, they gave us no clew…

“So,” he said, sitting down again; “so you’re in the secret, then?”

“I’ve looked them over,” I repeated despondently, “but I’m not in the secret. They don’t tell any secret, or anything else that concerns this case. I don’t believe they’ll help us a bit, Godfrey. They’re about everything under the sun but the one thing we’re interested in.”

I went back to my chair and applied myself to my cigar; I hardly dared look at Godfrey, his disappointment would be so intense. A silence of three or four minutes followed, broken only by the rustling of paper and the howling of the wind about the building.

Then I glanced at Godfrey. His cheeks were flushed, his eyes were beaming with triumph…

“What!” I cried, starting up, “do you think——”

He looked up with a little nod.

“Yes,” he said; “they tell us the whole story, Lester.”

CHAPTER III

A Study In Probabilities

FOR a moment I thought that Godfrey was joking. How could that tangle of haphazard clippings tell any story? And if they did, how could it be connected with the one which we were trying to decipher? Then, at a second glance, I saw how in deadly earnest he was. There could be no doubting it; he had read into them some meaning which I had failed utterly to see.

I sat down in my chair again, my nerves a-quiver; at last, we were on the verge of success. “Well, let’s hear it,” I said.

“I intend that you shall—wait till I get them arranged. I’ll build up the story as I go along, and I want you to ask any questions or point out any defects that occur to you. Of course, it will be only a study in probabilities; but between us, I think we can get it pretty straight.”

He got up from the desk with the clippings in a neat little pile, and sat down in the chair facing mine. He took a meditative puff or two before he began.

“We’ll have to start with a few general observations,” he said, at last. “It’s evident that Thompson wouldn’t have carried these clippings around with him for so long unless they in some way concerned him. It’s evident that Miss Croydon would never have dared to ​take them unless she was pretty certain that they somehow vitally concerned her. It’s evident that Tremaine wouldn’t have taken so much trouble to look for them unless he was mighty anxious to find them. We arrive, then, at our first conclusion, namely, that these clippings necessarily shed some light upon the tragedy recently enacted in this room, and upon the connection of these people with each other.”

“Yes,” I agreed; “unless all these people were mistaken in their estimate of the value of the clippings.”

“That, of course, is possible; but I don’t think it probable. At any rate, let us disregard that suggestion for the moment, and proceed along the other line. What light is it possible for these clippings to shed on the murder of Thompson? Obviously, it must be only by explaining motives. The majority of them seem to be concerned with the adventures of a Frenchman, who goes under various names, but who, I am sure, is one and the same person. He must, then, be either Tremaine or Thompson. But Thompson was evidently not a Frenchman, and Tremaine pretty evidently is, though his contact with the world has served to rub away a good many of the marks. I think we’re pretty safe, therefore, in assuming that the Frenchman of these clippings is Tremaine. As we go on, I believe we’ll find some internal evidence confirming this. You agree with me thus far?”

“Perfectly,” I said, “admitting your first premise that these clippings are really concerned with the case.”

“That, too, I believe, we’ll soon be able to prove ​by internal evidence. Of course, if they haven’t any connection with it, they’ll soon lead us into chaos. But there’s another thing; we mustn’t expect too much from them. We mustn’t expect a story complete in all its parts—it’s bound to be fragmentary. The wonder is that Thompson succeeded in keeping this many links in the chain. Maybe in his more prosperous days he had a mania for clippings. At best, we mustn’t be disappointed if there are long gaps in the story.”

“Yes,” I agreed again; “that’s evident enough.”

“Very well; we’ll begin with the clippings, then, substituting Tremaine’s name for the one used. The first clipping is merely a marriage notice, announcing that on the 23d of August, 1883, Tremaine married one Thérèse Bertigny, at Dieppe. Let me see; Tremaine was then probably about twenty years of age. No doubt he was born at Dieppe, so that the name given here, Victor Charente, is his real one. You’ll notice that he’s retained his first name-which is a bit of corroborative evidence.”

“Or a mere coincidence,” I supplemented.

“I’ll wire our correspondent at Dieppe to look up this Charente—perhaps he can get a photograph. That would settle the question.”

I nodded. Yes, that would settle it, for Tremaine at forty was probably not greatly different from Tremaine at twenty.

“The second clipping,” proceeded Godfrey, “shows us that our hero soon wandered from the straight and narrow path, and gives us, too, a little light upon his personal history. In the spring following his mar​riage—April 16, 1884, to be exact—while assistant manager of the ship supplies house of Briquet Frères, he absconds with sixty thousand francs. It is discovered that he kept a mistress at Rouen. He is believed to have gone to America—to have been smuggled out of the harbour by a friendly American captain. Surely, it is not impossible,” he added, “that this friendly American captain was Thompson.”

“Very few things are impossible,” I commented; I began to be impatient with Godfrey. He was permitting his prejudice against Tremaine to warp his judgment.

“Well, we’ll keep that for a hypothesis, anyhow,” and he turned to the third clipping. “This,” he continued, “shows us that he indeed came to America. It is dated July 23, 1885, and states that a young Frenchman and a tramp skipper named Johnson—ah, you see?”

I did, indeed, see—here was the first appearance of Tremaine’s zombi—of his familiar devil. I looked at Godfrey with the liveliest admiration. This constructive reasoning was something which I, certainly, was quite incapable of.

“So that J on Thompson’s arm was the initial of his real name,” observed Godfrey. “I thought it was—it had been there a long time, and an effort had been made to erase it. After a man has started on the crooked path, he doesn’t want any tattoo marks on him—they make identification too easy. For Johnson, then, we’ll hereafter read Thompson.”

I nodded; I was beginning to be convinced.

“Well,” continued Godfrey, “Tremaine and ​Thompson, then, were arrested in New York, July 23, 1885, at a low resort where they were having a carouse. They had beaten and robbed another sailor. It seems that nothing was left of the sixty thousand francs, and naturally Tremaine found it difficult to go honestly to work again. The fourth clipping, undated, but probably some months later, shows that Tremaine and Thompson were sentenced to three years each in Sing Sing. But they didn’t stay there so long,” he added, turning to the next clipping, “at least Tremaine didn’t. On the night of January 2, 1886, in the midst of a tremendous snowstorm, they managed to hide themselves in one of the workshops, and afterwards to scale the outer wall. In the morning Thompson was found at the foot of the wall with his head cut open and nearly frozen. Tremaine got clear away. Thompson was brought around with the greatest difficulty, and would say nothing except to indulge in terrible imprecations against his companion. You see,” concluded Godfrey, looking up, “we begin to get at the motive.”

“Yes,” I agreed, “it’s very plain, now you’ve started on the right track. It’s a good deal like Columbus’s egg.”

Godfrey smiled and turned to the sixth clipping, the longest of them all.

“It’s that way with most mysteries,” he said, “and here’s the internal evidence that all this theorising is pretty straight. It’s the clew, too, which we’ve been seeking so long.”

“It explains Miss Croydon’s presence here?” I asked, intensely interested and deeply stirred.

​“Just that!” he said, and shot me a triumphant glance. “Let us see if you can catch it. The clipping is in French, and though my French isn’t of the highest order, I can get the sense of it pretty well. It is dated Suresnes, and is evidently a letter from a provincial correspondent to a Paris newspaper, who like most other provincial correspondents, is delightfully vague. However, I gather from it that on the night of September 16, 1891, a beautiful young English girl—name not given—ran away from the convent school of the Sacred Heart at Suresnes and that the next morning she was safely married to a ‘gallant Frenchman’—Tremaine, of course—by the curé of the little village of Petits Colombes. The marriage was quite regular—though no doubt the curé’s fee was larger than usual—for the banns had been published as required. ‘Thus,’ concludes the eloquent correspondent, ‘does the grand passion once more prevail over the hypocrisies of the cloister.’ Evidently the correspondent is a rabid anti-clerical.”

“But still,” I objected, “I don’t see that that explains anything.”

“Let me help you. It was this clipping I happened to look at first the night we found the body. I read two or three lines aloud, then Simmonds put it back in the pocket. It must have been those few lines which told Miss Croydon the nature of the clippings and their importance to her. The date line would have been enough to do that. Besides, if she’d already known of them, she’d have taken them before we got here.”

“You mean Miss Croydon is the girl who ran away ​with Tremaine? But then, she couldn’t have been more than ten or twelve years old in 1891.”

“Eleven,” corrected Godfrey, and I was struck by the radiant expression of his face as he took a yellow paper from his pocket. “Let me read you two sentences from this old report concerning the Croydon family—you ought to have recalled them, my dear Lester.”

“Go ahead,” I said helplessly.

“‘Eldest daughter, Edith, born in France, August 26, 1874. Educated at school there, but broke down from overstudy and returned to Beckenham. Religion, Catholic.’ Now,” he demanded, “do you understand who it was married Tremaine at Petits Colombes in 1891?”

At last I saw it, and I could only sit and stare at him, marvelling at my own stupidity. This was the key—the key to the whole enigma. Miss Croydon had taken her sister’s place, had tried to buy him off, to get him out of her sister’s way. It was Tremaine who had opened the door—it was Tremaine whom she had come to the Marathon to meet. But—and I started upright—since they were Catholics, only his death could release Mrs. Delroy! Perhaps it was Thompson, after all, and his death had released her! But no; and in an instant the whole terrible position of the elder woman burst upon me. She was not Delroy’s wife, she was…

“So,” I said hoarsely, “Tremaine is then the true husband of Mrs. Delroy!”

“Let us finish the story of the clippings before going into that,” suggested Godfrey. “I confess, I don’t ​quite see the bearing of this next one. It’s a New York dispatch, perhaps to a London paper, under date of February 18, 1892, and chronicles the loss of the bark Centaur, with all on board, off the coast of Martinique. The Centaur was bound from Marseilles to Fort-de-France with a cargo of wines and muslins. Let us leave it, for a moment, and pass on to the next one, which is the last.

“This is dated Sydney, Australia, October 23, 1896, and relates how a daring scheme to rob the Bank of New South Wales was frustrated by a sailor who had been a member of the gang, but who got frightened and informed the police. The ringleader, a Frenchman, was captured and would receive a term of years in prison. There are four copies of this clipping, which no doubt means that it is the one which Thompson was sometimes in the habit of sending to Tremaine, to remind him of that Australian experience.

“Now, don’t you see, we reconstruct the whole story. Tremaine, starting out as a defaulter and robber, escapes from prison, leaving his partner in the lurch, treacherously, no doubt, since it awakened his violent anger—there isn’t any hatred more vindictive than that of one criminal toward another who has betrayed him. Tremaine finally goes back to France and succeeds in entangling Edith Croydon, then only about sixteen, in a marriage. We know how fascinating he is, and it’s not wonderful that he should be able to mislead an inexperienced girl. Of course what he wants is money, and so she writes to her father. He comes for her and takes her home—no doubt paying ​Tremaine a handsome sum to take himself off—in fact, mortgaging his home to do it.

“Miss Croydon gradually recovers; but she is Tremaine’s wife. Yet in 1900 she marries Delroy. She must, therefore, have had good reason to believe Tremaine dead.”

“Don’t you see?” I cried. “That’s the meaning of that item about the foundering of the Centaur, with all on board. Tremaine was a passenger and she knew it.”

“Good!” nodded Godfrey. “That’s undoubtedly it. Let me see,” and he turned back to the clipping; “that was in 1892. His name, perhaps, appeared among the missing; she waited eight years, and at last, believing his death established beyond a doubt, married again.

“Now let us see what Tremaine was doing. In 1896 he was in Australia, planning a bank robbery. He meets Thompson, descended from his estate of captain to that of common sailor. Tremaine takes Thompson in on the plan; and Thompson, to get even for that treachery at Sing Sing, gives him away. Tremaine, no doubt, got a penitentiary sentence. He probably broke jail again, for in 1899 he appears at Martinique, supposedly from South America. He has considerable money, which he no doubt stole somewhere, and perhaps he chose St. Pierre as a safe place to stay in hiding until the hue and cry after him was over. He would have some acquaintance with the island, if he landed there from the wreck.

“Thompson learns where he is—perhaps even sees him at St Pierre—and puts a bouquet to his revenge ​by driving him into fits of rage by reminding him of that Australian treachery. But at last he sends him a message, which brings him to New York.”

“Yes,” I said, “and I have cudgelled my brain in vain trying to imagine what that message could have been.”

“Well,” remarked Godfrey, “while we can’t, of course, give its actual text, I don’t think it very difficult to guess its general tenor. We know what Tremaine came here to do—he came to blackmail Mrs. Delroy. It’s pretty safe, then, to suppose that the message told him that she was blackmailable—in other words, that she had married a rich man. No doubt, Tremaine’s money was running low, and he jumped at this chance of replenishing his purse. Thompson was working his way toward St. Pierre to join him, and actually reached there on the Parima just as Tremaine was leaving. Perhaps Tremaine had tried to play Thompson false a second time.

“Now,” he continued, “let us see how nearly we can reconstruct the scene which occurred in this room. Tremaine supplies Thompson on the voyage up with whiskey, and agrees to keep him supplied, believing that he may be useful—not daring, at any rate, to make an open enemy of him, lest he spoil his game here—Thompson had only to speak a word to the police to put Tremaine back in Sing Sing to serve out his unexpired term. Arrived at New York, he establishes himself in the suite across the hall, and spends a week or two in looking over the ground, ostensibly boosting his railroad scheme. Thompson, who has been in jail, joins him and takes these rooms.

​“At last Tremaine is ready—or perhaps his lack of money forces him to act. He writes a note to Mrs. Delroy, telling her that he’s alive and wishes to share in her prosperity. He demands that she meet him in these rooms, asking for Thompson—that leaves him free from suspicion should she show the note to her husband and should he attempt to have the writer arrested for blackmail. But she isn’t so sensible. Perhaps she disregards his first note; perhaps she’s unable to decide what to do. She has, of course, been thrown into a panic. He writes again; in despair, she seeks the advice of her sister, and Miss Croydon, who is by far the stronger of the two, offers to come here herself, see the man, and find out what he proposes to do.

“Tremaine has secured Thompson’s key, given him some money, and sent him out to get drunk. But for Jimmy the Dude, he would have stayed away—probably in the lock-up—but Jimmy brings him home. Tremaine has to make the best of it, since there isn’t time to get Thompson out of the way again. Anyway, he’s so dead-drunk, that Tremaine anticipates no interference from him. He shuts him in the bedroom, and sits down to wait for Miss Croydon.

“She arrives promptly, despite the rain, and we can imagine that the dialogue which followed was not of a milk-and-water kind—both of them are full of fire, and they made the sparks fly.

“Thompson is aroused by the voices, or perhaps wakes naturally—comes into the outer room and interferes. He is still half-drunk; perhaps he threatens Tremaine. At any rate, Tremaine picks up the iron pipe and knocks him down; then, in a sudden black ​frenzy of anger, remembering Australia, seeing how Thompson will always stand in his way, he draws his revolver and shoots him through the heart. That done, he walks out, closes the door, goes to his room, and, at a favourable moment, leaves the building.”

He leaned back in his chair and applied a fresh match to his cigar.

“That,” he concluded, “is my idea of the story. There’s one person who can fill in the details. I’m going to apply to her as soon as I get back from Boston.”

“You mean Miss Croydon?”

“Yes,” he nodded, “and I think Tremaine is pretty near the end of his adventurous career.”

“There’s one thing,” I remarked, after a moment, “that diamond I found on the floor here didn’t come from Tremaine’s pin. I tried it last night and it didn’t fit.”

Godfrey smiled as he placed the clippings carefully in his pocket-book.

“I know it,” he said; “I meant to tell you. It came from a ring belonging to Jimmy the Dude. I saw him tonight across the street—Simmonds had him in for another sweating—Simmonds isn’t quite convinced yet that Jimmy’s innocent—and I noticed a ring on his finger containing a cluster of little diamonds. One of them was gone, and when I questioned him, he said he’d lost it somewhere the night Thompson was killed. He probably dropped it here as he was helping Thompson to bed.”

“That’s it, no doubt,” I agreed; “but it breaks one thread of evidence.”

​“We don’t need it!” declared Godfrey confidently, as he arose to go.

“We’ve got a chain about Tremaine, Lester, that he can’t break-and we’ll compel Miss Croydon to forge the last rivet.”

But in my dreams that night, I saw him breaking the chains, trampling upon them, hurling them from him. I tried to hold them fast with all my puny strength, for I fancied that, once free, he would sweep over the earth like a pestilence. Then, suddenly, it was not Tremaine but Cecily I was holding; she turned to look at me with a countenance so terrible that it palsied me; her eyes scorched me with a white heat, burnt me through and through. Then she raised her hand and struck me a heavy blow upon the head—again-again—till, blindly, in agony, I loosed my hold of her and fell, fell…

CHAPTER IV

Cecily Says Good-bye

THE cold light of the morning brought with it a profound scepticism. Godfrey’s theory no longer seemed so convincing; in fact, it did not seem convincing at all. Many objections occurred to me; I saw that the whole elaborate structure was built upon quicksand—there was no proof that any of the clippings referred to Tremaine or Thompson; there was no proof that Thompson had gathered them with elaborate care and of set purpose; there was no proof…

Yes—there was one point susceptible of proof; by it the whole structure would stand or fall…

“Mr. Royce,” I said to our junior, in the course of the morning, “I wonder if I could be spared this afternoon? I’ve some business of my own which I’d very much like to attend to.”

“Why, certainly,” he answered instantly: so when I left the office at noon, I took the Elevated to the Grand Central Station and bought a ticket to Ossining. Once there, I went direct to the grey old prison and stated my errand to Mr. Jones, the sub-warden, whom I found in charge.

“I’ve come up from New York,” I began, after giving him my card, “to see if you can identify ​this man,” and I handed him the photograph of Thompson.

He looked at it long and searchingly, seemingly for a time in doubt, but at last he shook his head.

“No, I don’t believe I can,” he said. “There’s something familiar about the face, but I can’t place it.”

“How long have you been connected with the prison, Mr. Jones?” I asked.

“I began thirty years ago as guard. But what made you think I could identify this fellow?”

“We’ve rather imagined,” I answered, “that his real name was Johnson and that he served a term here for robbery, beginning in 1885.”

He looked at the photograph again, with a sudden flush of excitement in his face.

“I believe you’re right,” he said. “Let’s look at Johnson’s photo.”

He consulted the index, then turned to one of the wall cases.

“Here he is,” he said, opening a compartment and pointing to a photograph. “It’s the same man, sure, only changed a lot. It would be easy to prove it. I suppose they took his Bertillon measurements at the morgue, and we’ve only to compare them with ours. They’d be the same, no matter how much he’d changed.”

And he had changed, indeed! The Johnson of the prison photograph was, of course, smooth-shaven; his face was alert, intelligent; there was no scar upon the temple, nor did the features show that subtle bloating of long-continued dissipation. But it was the ​it was the same. There was no need to apply any finer tests.

“I remember him now,” said Jones, looking from one photograph to the other, “very well. He was a quiet, well-behaved chap-had been captain of a little tramp steamer, I believe. He had a perfect mania for cutting pieces out of newspapers and pasting them in a scrap-book. He spent all his leisure time that way. Oh, yes; I remember, too, he tried to escape, but his pal went back on him and left him layin’ out yonder by the wall. His pal was a bad one, he was; he got away and I’ve often wondered what become of him. Here he is.”

He swung open another compartment, and I found myself staring at Tremaine!

Not until I was quite near New York did I recover sufficiently from the effects of this discovery to heed the cry of the train-boy as he went through the coaches with the evening papers.

“All about th’ Edgemere murder!” he was crying, and the name caught my ear.

“Edgemere,” I repeated to myself. “Edgemere. I’ve heard that name somewhere.”

Then in a flash I remembered; and in a moment more the whole story of the tragedy of the night before—the murder of Graham and the theft of Mrs. Delroy’s necklace—lay before me. With what intensity of interest I read it can be easily imagined; I was shaken, nervous, horror-stricken. That there was some connection between this second tragedy and the one in suite fourteen I did not doubt; and I read and ​re-read the details with the greatest care, in the effort to find where that connection lay.

But it was impossible to see how Tremaine could be implicated in the Edgemere mystery even in the least degree—his alibi was perfect. On the other hand, the evidence against young Drysdale seemed complete in every link. Certainly, none of the papers doubted his guilt, and they handled his past career and his family history with a minuteness and freedom which must have been most trying to his friends. Coroner Heffelbower came in for the lion’s share of praise—everyone agreed that he had conducted the case with rare skill and acumen. Of course, the Record had his photograph, as well as those of his wife and six children, and as I looked at his round face, I fancied him strutting back and forth in his saloon, inflated with pride, and listening approvingly to the constant ringing of the cash-register. It’s an ill wind—but certainly there was no denying that he had handled the case adroitly.

Drysdale, it appeared, had been lodged in the jail at Babylon, and steadfastly refused to make any statement, or to explain his absence from the house. No reporters had been admitted to Edgemere—though that fact did not prevent two or three of them from writing minute descriptions of the condition of affairs there, and publishing interviews with the members of the family. Marvellous accounts were given of the exquisite beauty and immense value of the missing necklace, and the Record published a drawing of it “from a description by Tiffany.”

We pulled into the station, and I took a car down ​to my rooms, turning this latest enigma over and over in my mind, looking at it from every angle, trying in vain to discover some fact that would implicate Tremaine. At my door I paused a moment; then I crossed the hall and knocked at Tremaine’s door. Perhaps Cecily had forgiven me, and in an evening’s talk I ought surely to be able to find out something more…

But it was not Cecily, it was Tremaine himself who opened to me.

“Oh, Mr. Lester,” he cried, with hand outstretched, “how are you? I wanted to see you—I’ve been listening for your step. You must join us here this evening.”

“I shall be glad to,” I said, returning his clasp, all my suspicions melting away, reduced to absurdity, at sight of him. “But why so particularly this evening?”

“Because we’ve planned a little celebration. Cecily is going away——”

“Going away?”

“Yes—back to St. Pierre to get my house in order—but I’ll tell you at dinner—it’s to be served here in an hour. You will come?”

“Certainly I will,” I assured him, and hastened over to my room to dress.

He was awaiting me when I knocked an hour later; a table had been set with three places.

“Come in,” he said. “Dinner will be here directly. I thought it safer to have the celebration here because—well,” and he nodded significantly toward the inner room.

​“Cecily?” I questioned.

“Yes—she takes it to heart more than you’d believe. But she’ll get over it in a day or two.”

“When does she leave?”

“In the morning early, by the fruit boat. And, by the way, I want you to go down with me to see her off. She’ll appreciate it.”

“Why, certainly—but isn’t it rather sudden?”

“In a way, yes. You see, I’ve arranged for a committee from New York to go down to Martinique and look over the ground, and I want to take them before they have a chance to cool off. I’ve got to get my house there in order and engage some servants, for that will be our headquarters, and if Cecily doesn’t leave by the boat tomorrow, she can’t go for ten days. Ten days from now I’m going to have the committee ready to sail, and when I get them to Martinique, I’m going to give them a sample of Creole hospitality. I wish you could come,” he added warmly. “I’d like to have you.”

“There’s nothing I’d like better,” I said, suddenly conscious of how I had slandered him in my thoughts. “But I fear it isn’t possible just now.”

“Well, some day I shall have you there, and I warn you I shan’t let you go in a hurry. Come in,” he added, in response to a knock at the door.

Two waiters entered, and in a moment the dinner was served.

“That will do,” said Tremaine, pressing a coin into the hand of each of them. “We’ll attend to ourselves. Send up in an hour for the dishes. I thought that ​was best,” he added, as he closed the door after them. “We can talk freely now.”

He stepped to the inner door.

“Cecily!” he called.

She appeared in a moment, with eyelids a little puffed and red, but on the whole in much better spirits than I had expected. She was arrayed in all her finery—she had put on every piece of jewelry, I think—and she paused in the doorway to throw me a courtesy. Tremaine took her hand and led her to a seat, with a grace worthy of the Grand Monarque.

“See the spoiled child!” he said, laughing across the table at her, a moment later. “She’s been making herself miserable for nothing. In two weeks, we shall be together again at Fond-Corré.”

She answered his laugh with a thin smile, and shot me a glance pregnant with meaning. I knew she meant that her prophecy had come true.

He brimmed her glass with wine.

“Drink that,” he said. “To our meeting in two weeks.”

“To our meeting in two weeks!” she repeated ironically, and drained the glass.

But in a few moments the mood passed and she became quite gay. Not till then did it occur to me that Tremaine had made no reference to the tragedy at Edgemere. Then I caught myself just in time, for I remembered suddenly that I was not supposed to know he had been there.

“So you have been successful?” I asked finally.

“Yes, I believe so. I’ve succeeded in interesting ​some capitalists. Richard Delroy—perhaps you know him?”

“No; only by reputation.”

“He has helped me greatly.”

“You got through, then, sooner than you expected?”

“Yes—I thought it would take a week, at least. Mr. Delroy had arranged that the conference should take place at his country house near Babylon. We finished the details yesterday, and,” he added, after the faintest hesitation, “an extremely unfortunate event occurred there last night which made any further stay impossible—I dare say you saw an account of it in the evening papers?”

“Oh, yes; that murder and robbery. The evidence seems to point very strongly toward a young fellow named Drysdale.”

“Very strongly,” he agreed, nodding with just the right degree of concern, “although I’m hoping that he may be able to prove himself not guilty. An amiable young fellow—somewhat impulsive and headstrong—but let us not talk about it. It’s too unpleasant. This evening, we must be gay.”

There is no need for me to detail what we did talk about, since it in no way concerns this story; but I had never seen Tremaine to better advantage. He was the unexceptionable gentleman, the man of the world who had travelled far and tasted many things, a brilliant and witty talker—a personality, in a word, on the whole so fascinating and impressive that long before the evening was over I had dismissed as ridiculous my vague suspicions of an hour before. ​The story that Godfrey had built up was, I reflected, wholly hypothetical, flimsy with the flimsiness which always attaches to circumstantial evidence. I knew how a jury, looking at Tremaine, would laugh at it. No lawyer would risk his reputation with such a case, no magistrate would allow it to proceed before him. Why, for all I knew, Tremaine could prove an alibi for the tragedy in suite fourteen as complete as that which Delroy had offered for him in the Edgemere mystery. Godfrey and I had been forging a chain of sand, imagining it steel! As for that prison photograph, I had been deceived by a chance resemblance.

“The boat starts from pier fifty-seven, North River, at the foot of West Twenty-seventh Street, at eight o’clock,” were Tremaine’s last words to me. “We shall look for you there.”

Is there any virtue in dreams, I wonder? That night, while I slept, the tragedy in suite fourteen was re-enacted before me. I witnessed its every detail—I saw Tremaine snatch up the pipe and strike a heavy blow—then, suddenly, behind him, appeared a face dark with passion, a hand shot out, a pistol flashed, even as Tremaine tried to knock it aside, and Cecily looked down upon her victim with eyes blazing with hatred!

I was at the pier in good time, for, let me confess it, I was curious to see the details of this leave-taking. Cecily and Tremaine were there before me, the former leaning sadly against the rail while the latter directed the checking of some baggage.

​I went directly to her.

“So here you are,” I said, “ready to go back to that St. Pierre you love so much. Aren’t you glad?”

“Oh, very glad,” she answered, with a single listless glance at me. “I shall never come back to this horrible place.”

“And Tremaine will join you in two weeks,” I added.

This time she looked at me—a lightning flash!-a glance that brought back vividly my dream.

“Will he?” she asked between her teeth.

“Why,” I questioned, in affected surprise, “don’t you think he will?”

She drew in her breath with a quick gasp.

“What does it matter? I’m only a fille-de-couleur. I shall laugh and forget, like all the others,” and, indeed, a strange unnatural excitement had come into her face.

I saw her eyes devouring Tremaine as he approached.

“Everything is arranged,” he said cheerily, shaking hands with me. “Here are the checks, Cecily. Now take us down to your stateroom and do the honours.”

“As you please, doudoux,” she answered quietly, and led the way.

It was a very pleasant cabin, one of the best on board, and I saw that some of her personal belongings were already scattered about it. Against the hot-water pipe in one corner was hanging Fê-Fê’s cage. A curtain had been tied about it to protect its tender occupant from the cold.

​“I see you’re taking Fê-Fê with you,” I remarked.

“To be sure she is,” said Tremaine. “She knows the snake would starve to death if she left it with me. But we must drink to a good voyage.”

He rose and touched the electric button. Cecily followed him with eyes gleaming like two coals of fire. Looking at her, I felt a vague uneasiness—did she have concealed in the bosom of her gown that same revolver—was she only waiting a favourable moment…

“The first toast is yours, Mr. Lester,” said Tremaine, as he filled the glasses.

“To Cecily!” I cried. “Her health, long life, and happiness!”

“Thank you, chè,” she said simply, and very gravely, and we drank it.

Just then a bell sounded loudly from the deck and a voice shouting commands.

“Come, we must be going,” said Tremaine, rising hastily. “That’s the shore bell.”

I passed out first, and for an instant held my breath, expecting I know not what—a dull report—a scream… But in a moment they came out together. Tremaine and I made a rush for the gang-plank, while Cecily again took up her station against the rail. We waved to her and waved again, shouting goodbyes, as the last rope was cast loose, and the steamer began to move away from the dock.

She waved back at us and kissed her hands, looking very beautiful.

Then suddenly her face changed; she swayed and caught at the rail for support.

​“She’s going to faint, pardieu!” said Tremaine.

But she did not faint; instead she made a funnel of her hands and shouted a last message back at us.

Tremaine nodded as though he understood and waved his hand.

“Did you catch what she said?” he asked.

“No, not a word of it. That tug over there whistled just then.”

“I caught the word ‘lit.’ She probably wants to know how many she’ll have to get ready—but no matter,” and he turned to me with an expressive little shrug.

“Why? Isn’t the committee really going to Martinique?”

“Oh, a couple of engineers are going to look over the ground and report.”

“And you?”

“I shall stay here.” He waved his handkerchief again at the receding boat, then passed it across his forehead. “That takes a big load off my mind, Mr. Lester, I tell you, to get her safely off and be alive to tell the tale. I rather expected her to stick a knife into me last night. I made a great mistake in bringing her with me.”

“But I thought you said——”

“Oh, they do laugh and forget in time; but just at first they naturally feel badly. Now, before the voyage is over, I dare say Cecily will have another doudoux—some handsome Creole returning home, perhaps. She’s a magnificent woman, just the same,” he added.

​“That she is,” I agreed, and threw a last look down the river.

The boat was almost hidden by the morning mist; in a moment more it had quite disappeared, bearing Cecily to death, a fortnight later, in the shadow of Pelée. And I doubt if I shall ever know another woman like her.

CHAPTER V

Counsel for the Defence

WHEN I opened the office door, twenty minutes later, I was surprised to find Godfrey just within, in close conference with Mr. Royce.

“Here he is!” he cried. “No, no; don’t take off your coat; don’t even take off your hat! Come along; it’s a mighty close thing now,” and he caught me by the arm.

“It’s all right, Lester,” said our junior, seeing my astonished countenance. “Mr. Godfrey will explain on the way out.”

That was enough; I needed no second bidding, and ran after Godfrey to the elevator. At the curb a cab was waiting, and we jumped into it.

“James Slip,” called Godfrey, and in an instant we were off.

The driver seemed to realise the need of haste, for we bumped over the paving-stones at a prodigious rate, threading the dirty streets of the Italian and Jewish quarters, and finally pulling up with a whirl in the shadow of Brooklyn bridge.

“Come on!” cried Godfrey, and we crossed the ferry-house at a jump, slammed our tickets into the chopper, and sprang aboard the boat just as it was casting loose.

“That was a close shave,” said Godfrey, sinking into the nearest seat and taking off his hat.

​I sat down beside him and mopped away the perspiration. I had need of all my breath for a moment, but at last I managed to blurt out a question.

“What’s it all about?”

“Well,” began Godfrey, putting on his hat again and looking at me with a quizzical smile, “in the first place, the eminent and widely known firm of Graham & Royce has been engaged to defend one John Tolbert Drysdale, now under arrest charged with murder and robbery. You are on your way to Babylon, Long Island, to look over the ground, have a talk with your client, and get the case ready.”

“So!” I nodded; “yes, I read of the case in last night’s papers. But Mr. Drysdale has never, I think, been a client of ours; how did he happen to choose us?”

“He didn’t; I chose you. I wanted him to have the best in the market.”

“Thanks,” I said, colouring a little. “But how did the office come to take the case? We’re always rather shy of criminal cases, you know.”

“Yes, I know you are. But I chinned your junior a bit.”

“That explains it!” I said, laughing. “Of course we’ll do our best for him.”

“You’ll acquit him,” said Godfrey, with conviction. “I was at Boston yesterday, or I’d have gone down to Babylon at once and taken you with me.”

“Then I shouldn’t have got to say goodbye to Cecily.”

“To whom?”

​“To Cecily—Tremaine’s sweetheart, you know. He shipped her back to Martinique this morning.”

“Oh, did he?” and my companion’s eyes narrowed suddenly. “Why was that?”

I related briefly the incidents of the preceding evening and of the morning.

“Godfrey,” I added impulsively, “if you knew Tremaine personally, I think you’d realise what a poor case we’ve got against him. Why, it’s no case at all! Theorising’s all very well, but what a jury wants is evidence—plain, straight-out, direct evidence, and we haven’t enough of that to build a cobweb. I thought I’d found some yesterday afternoon, but it was all the effect of self-induced hypnosis,” and I told him of my visit to Sing-Sing.

He listened with intent face.

“I’m not so sure it was hypnosis,” he said, when I had finished. “At least, I’ll have a look at those photographs myself before I accept that theory. In fact, I rather think it’s Tremaine who has hypnotised you, not I.”

“I don’t believe he’s guilty,” I repeated.

“Then who is?”

“Cecily!” I said bluntly. “I believe she’s the one who killed Thompson, anyway.”

“Where’s your evidence?”

“I haven’t any,” I said helplessly; “only a kind of intuition.”

“Well, I’ve the same kind of intuition it was Tremaine.”

“But we haven’t any evidence against him, either; not a shred of real, direct, convincing evidence.”

​“Perhaps not,” he agreed; “but we’re going to get it--enough to convict him and some to spare.”

“Convict him of what?”

“Of two murders and one robbery.”

“Then you believe he’s implicated in this Edgemere affair?”

“I’m sure of it.”

“But there isn’t a shred of evidence against him,” I protested again, coming back to my old objection; really Godfrey was allowing his prejudices to carry him too far.

“Not a shred, apparently,” he assented readily.

“Well, then, how——”

“Here’s the landing,” he interrupted. “We can talk it over on the train.”

We left the boat and hastened across to the station. The train was waiting the word to start, and was in motion a moment after we stepped aboard. There were not many passengers, for the morning travel is toward the city, not from it; and we had no difficulty in finding a seat where we could talk without fear of being overheard.

“Now,” began Godfrey, “as you say, there isn’t a shred of evidence, apparently, against Tremaine. How about your client?”

“Against Drysdale,” I answered, “the evidence seems to be unusually complete.”

“You might have used a stronger phrase. It’s not only complete, it’s consummately perfect. Not a link is missing. He was on the spot; his revolver is found near by with blood on it; a button from his coat is in the dead man’s hand; when he returns to the house, ​he is visibly disturbed; at the moment of his arrest, he was preparing to escape; he refuses to explain where he was at the time the crime was committed; he’s involved in steel speculation and presumably needs ready money.”

“Well?”

“Well,” said Godfrey earnestly, “that very perfection is its greatest weakness. It’s too perfect. Any one of those things might have happened; perhaps any two of them; but that they should all have happened outrages the law of probabilities. That every link of the chain is complete means that it has been artificially produced, like a stage storm, where the lightning flashes at just the right instant. The fellow who arranged it wanted to be too sure—he overleaped himself.”

“That may all be true,” I said slowly, after a moment, “but it would be worse than folly to use that argument with a jury. To say that a man isn’t guilty because the evidence against him appears to be conclusive——”

“We’re not going to use it to a jury; we’re using it between ourselves, in the effort to find a working hypothesis. And here’s another argument which would carry no weight with a jury, yet which with me, personally, is conclusive: I know Jack Drysdale; I’ve known him for a long time; and I know that it’s utterly impossible that he should have committed such a crime. He’s not a very original fellow; not at all a genius; he’s never done anything, perhaps, which either of us would think really worth doing; but he’s kind, and honest, and gentle, and honourable. I re​peat that a crime like this is as far beyond his horizon as it is beyond yours—farther, I’m sure, than it is beyond mine; and yet, I don’t believe you’d think me guilty, no matter what the evidence against me seemed to be.”

“I shouldn’t,” I said; “but if Drysdale isn’t guilty, who is?”

“If Drysdale isn’t, there’s only one other person who can be—that’s Tremaine. As I’m sure Drysdale’s not guilty, I’m correspondingly sure that Tremaine is.”

“But then,” I objected, “you’ve just said that there’s no evidence against him.”

“I said apparently there wasn’t.”

“And Delroy says he didn’t leave the house.”

“Delroy must be mistaken—must be, mind you! And while there isn’t any direct evidence, there’s some pretty good indirect. We know that Tremaine is a criminal and, therefore, capable of this crime; we suspect that he needs money, and the necklace would place him out of need for a long time to come; we know that he was within reach of the spot where the murder was committed, if he could get away from Delroy for an hour or so. In other words, we have a motive and the physical possibility of guilt. I may add that I think we shall find he had some reason to injure Drysdale—I’m sure we shall, in fact.”

“But the button—the pistol—Drysdale’s unexplained absence?”

“Those points can only be cleared up by. a personal investigation of the premises. That’s why we’re going to Edgemere.”

​“Godfrey,” I said, “there seems to me to be one great objection to your theory that Tremaine killed Thompson. If Miss Croydon saw him do it, would she consent to associate with him? Wouldn’t her very knowledge of his crime give her a greater hold on him than he has on her sister?”

He paused to turn this over.

“Yes,” he admitted at last; “it would; but a woman might not think of that.”

“A desperate woman would think of everything,” I said; “and if your theory is right, both she and her sister must be very desperate.”

He nodded without answering, and sat staring before him, his brows knitted in perplexity.

There was one conclusive objection I might have urged, had I known of it—but I was not yet possessed of the story of the house-party. If Tremaine was the husband of Mrs. Delroy, how could he propose marriage to her sister? That was a rock, as yet unseen by us, which loomed ahead—which we could not avoid—upon which our theory must inevitably be dashed to pieces.

The train flashed past two or three big hotels, then the brakes were applied.

“Here’s Babylon,” said Godfrey, rousing himself from the profound revery into which my question had thrown him. “We’ll look in upon the prisoner, first, and cheer him up a bit.”

The jail was only a short distance from the station, and a five minutes’ walk brought us to it.

“We’re here in behalf of Mr. Drysdale,” Godfrey explained to the jailer, “This is Mr. Lester, of Gra​ham & Royce, of New York, who have been retained to defend him. I suppose we may see him?”

“I’ll take in your cards,” he said, after looking us over. “If Mr. Drysdale wants to see you, it’s all right, but you’ll be the first ones.”

He disappeared into an inner room; we heard the rattling of keys and the clanging of an iron door. He was back again in a moment.

“Step this way, gentlemen,” he said.

Drysdale was sitting on the bunk in his little cell. He came forward with hand outstretched as soon as he saw Godfrey.

“This is mighty kind of you, Jim,” he said.

“I’ll have to lock you in, gentlemen,” broke in the jailer. “How soon must I come fer you?”

“Say twenty minutes,” answered Godfrey, looking at his watch. Then he turned back to us as the jailer’s steps died away down the corridor. “Jack,” he said, “this is Mr. Lester, of Graham & Royce, who’ve been retained to look after your case.”

“My case? Who retained them?”

“I did. I scarcely supposed you were going to let yourself be convicted without lifting a finger.”

Drysdale smiled bitterly.

“They won’t convict me. Just the same, I’m glad to see you, Mr. Lester,” and he held out his hand. “I shall, of course, need some legal advice.”

“I’m glad you admit that much!” retorted Godfrey, with sarcasm. “I understand that you haven’t condescended as yet to prove an alibi?”

“No,” answered the prisoner quietly. “The fact is, I can’t prove an alibi.”

​“You can’t?” and Godfrey’s face paled a little.

“No; when I left the house that night, I went down to the pier and had a little talk with Graham; then I—I wandered around the grounds until the storm came up, when I went back to the house and up to my room. Nobody saw me; I spoke to nobody after I left Graham, until I returned to the house. There’s only my own word for it. What was the use of telling the police a story like that?”

“No use at all,” agreed Godfrey hastily. “I’m glad you didn’t tell it. But what on earth possessed you to behave in such a crazy fashion?”

“That,” answered Drysdale, still more quietly, “is one question which I must absolutely refuse to answer.”

CHAPTER VI

Innocent or Guilty?

WE sat looking at him a moment in silence. It was evident that he was suffering some exquisite mental anguish, though I suspected, somehow, that it was not because of his imprisonment. There was something deeper than that; something that touched him more closely…

“Oh, come, Jack,” protested Godfrey, at last, “this is no time to put on the high and mighty. You don’t seem to realise what an exceedingly serious position you’re in.”

“I know one thing, Godfrey,” returned Drysdale, with a forced smile, “and that is that I didn’t kill Graham nor steal the necklace. So I know they can’t convict me.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure of it; things like that happen occasionally. How did Graham get hold of that button off your raincoat?”

“I’m sure I don’t know.”

“You wore the coat that evening?”

“Yes.”

“And the button was on it?”

“Yes—I’d have missed it, if it hadn’t been. Besides, I buttoned the coat up when I started back to the house.”

Godfrey’s face flushed and his eyes began to glisten.

​“You’re sure, then, that it was on the coat when you returned to the house?”

“Why, yes,” answered Drysdale, looking at him in some astonishment, “reasonably sure.”

Godfrey fell a moment silent; then he shook his head impatiently.

“There’s another thing,” he said. “How did your pistol get out there in that boat?”

“That’s another puzzler.”

“Now see here, Jack,” continued Godfrey seriously, “there’s one thing certain—either you killed Graham or Tremaine did.”

“Tremaine?” repeated the prisoner, with tightening lips.

“Yes. Do you know of any evidence against him?”

Drysdale paused a moment, his brows knitted.

“No,” he answered positively, at last. “I don’t see how Tremaine could possibly have done it.”

“Why not?”

“Because he didn’t leave the house, so Delroy says. I know he was there when I went out, and when I came back I saw him sitting by his lighted window, writing apparently.”

“Ah!” Then after a moment, “Did you keep that journal you promised to keep?”

“Yes; you’ll find it in my room—that is——”

He stopped suddenly and coloured.

“Well? Out with it.”

“I just happened to think that perhaps that damned fool of a coroner’s got it. See here, Jim, if you find it I want you to promise me one ​you won’t read it—not yet—it won’t help you a bit.”

“I’m not so sure of that,” retorted Godfrey grimly. “Why don’t you want me to read it?”

“The fact is,” Drysdale answered, colouring still more, “that after I got started, I—I forgot I was writing it for you——”

“I see,” said Godfrey drily, as the other paused. “I’ll promise you this, Jack—I won’t read it unless I find that I can’t clear you any other way.”

Drysdale heaved a sigh of relief.

“That’s all I want,” he said. “Afterwards, perhaps, I won’t mind; but just now——”

His voice trailed off, his lips trembled.

“And you’ve nothing more to tell us?”

“Not a thing.”

“Very well; we’ll go out and have a look about the place. We’ll come in again this afternoon. We’re going to clear you,” he added confidently.

We heard the jailer’s footsteps approaching along the corridor.

“I don’t doubt it,” said Drysdale, with a puzzling listlessness. “It’s very good of you both to take all this trouble.”

The jailer opened the door and we passed out.

“Do you know when the inquest will be?” Godfrey asked, as we stepped through together into the outer room.

“Yes, sir; t’-morrer mornin’. They’d have had it today, but Coroner Heffelbower hopes t’ find th’ necklace by t’-morrer.”

“Oh; so they haven’t found it, then?”

​“No, sir; they searched Drysdale’s room, but it wasn’t there. Now they’re tryin’t’ figger out where he hid it.”

“Well,” observed Godfrey, “they’ll have to figure a long time, because he didn’t hide it anywhere.”

“Mebbe not, sir,” retorted the jailer, with a sceptical smile. “But appearances are dead agin him. Why, even his girl thinks he did it.”

“How do you know that?” demanded Godfrey quickly.

“When Heffelbower was bringin’ him out o’ th’ house, they met her in th’ hall, an’ she asked Drysdale what he wanted t’ do it fer, why he couldn’t awaited a while. That’s purty good evidence, I think.”

Godfrey had listened with a face hard as steel. He turned away without answering, and as we went down the street together, I saw that this new development puzzled and worried him sorely. That Miss Croydon should think Drysdale guilty, even for an instant, was inconceivable!

We made our way to the nearest hotel and engaged a trap, and while it was getting ready, ordered a light lunch. Godfrey ate in thoughtful silence; as for me, I confess that I saw little ground for that conviction he had expressed so confidently, that we could prove our client’s innocence. I was forced to admit that, to look at Drysdale, no one would believe him capable of such a crime; but then, for that matter, to look at Tremaine, who would believe him capable of it? Put the two men before a jury, and Tremaine would come off victor every time. It becomes instinctive, in time, for a lawyer to try to look at his cases with an ​average jury’s eyes—he must see them as those twelve men in the box will see them—and applying that method now, it was very evident to me that the chance of clearing our client was very slim indeed.

The trap came around to the door and in a moment we were off along the sandy road. The day was warm and bright, the air had the sharp salt smell of the ocean, trees and bushes were starting into life under the touch of spring. But Godfrey did not seem to notice any of these things. He kept his eyes straight ahead and his face was very stern. No doubt he was finding the problem much more difficult than he had thought.

But at last we swung down before the door at Edgemere. A man ran out to hold our horse. We asked for Mr. Delroy, and a servant who had been stationed in the vestibule took in our cards. He returned immediately and conducted us to the library. Delroy came forward to meet us, our cards in his hand, a curious look of doubt and perplexity upon his countenance.

“My dear Godfrey,” he began, “I didn’t like to refuse to see you, and yet I’ve declined to talk to reporters——”

“You’re not talking to one now, Mr. Delroy,” broke in my companion. “I’ve come down purely in Drysdale’s behalf. Of course, I’ll write up the story, if I succeed in getting him off, but I’ll not use anything I learn here in that way.”

“Oh, that’s all right, then,” and Delroy breathed a sigh of relief. “Glad to see you. And you, too, Mr. Lester.”

​“Mr. Lester is Drysdale’s counsel,” explained my companion. “Between us, we’re going to see that he’s cleared of this ridiculous charge.”

“Yes, I hope you will. Sit down, won’t you? Ridiculous, that’s the word for it; and yet,” he added, passing his hand before his eyes in a dazed way, “there are so many points of evidence which seem unexplainable that I’ve grown giddy thinking about them. It’s such a terrible thing—my wife is quite prostrated—even a little delirious at times; her sister is almost ill—we’ve all been terribly upset.”

“No doubt,” nodded Godfrey, his face curiously intent. “We’re not going to trouble you much now, Mr. Delroy; the only thing I should like you to do is to give us an account of all that happened that evening. I hope you will do that.”

“Yes, I’ll be glad to do that,” and he proceeded to tell in detail the story the reader already knows.

“There’s one thing,” said Godfrey, when it was ended. “Is it true that Miss Croydon seemed to believe Drysdale guilty?”

“Yes,” answered Delroy; “for an instant she did; but she explained to me afterwards that she thought it was Tremaine who had been killed.”

Godfrey’s eyes blazed with sudden interest.

“Tremaine! Then there’s been ill-feeling between them?”

“Yes—at least on Drysdale’s part. He’d conceived some absurd suspicions of Tremaine—told me I’d done wrong in inviting him here—acted rather nastily about it, in fact.”

“Thank you,” said Godfrey quietly, though his eyes ​were still shining. “Now I should like your permission to look over the grounds and to examine the rooms which Drysdale and Tremaine occupied.”

“Certainly,” and Delroy touched the bell. “Thomas,” he said, to the servant who entered, “you will take these gentlemen wherever they wish to go and answer any questions they may ask you.”

We went first to the boathouse and pier and looked over the scene of the tragedy. I was struck, at once, by the change in Godfrey’s demeanour; he no longer seemed either perplexed or worried; his face was shining with triumph. Evidently he had discovered a way out of the labyrinth.

To the boathouse he gave a particularly careful scrutiny, searching in every corner, apparently for some minute object which he failed to find. Out on the pier, again, he stood looking up and down with thoughtful face.

“Pshaw!” he said suddenly. “I might have known I was just wasting my time in there. Come this way, Lester.”

He hurried back through the boathouse and down to the beach. Along the edge of it he walked, scrutinising every inch of the sand. Suddenly he stooped with a little cry of triumph and caught up a small bottle. It was quite empty. He removed the cork, sniffed it, and replaced it quickly.

“Do you mean to say, Godfrey,” I demanded in astonishment, “that you have been looking for that bottle?”

“It’s precisely what I’ve been looking for,” he returned exultantly. “And I’ve learned one ​thing—never to mistrust a logical deduction. Now let’s go back to the house. And, Thomas,” he added to our guide, “take us back by the way that will bring us opposite the room occupied by Mr. Tremaine.”

“All right, sir,” said Thomas. “His room was right next to Mr. Drysdale’s in th’ east wing—there it is now, sir-th’ third and fourth windows from th’ end.”

“And the fifth and sixth windows belong to Mr. Drysdale’s room?”

“Yes, sir.”

A sort of balcony ran along the entire wing just beneath the windows, half-covered with creeping vines, which in summer, no doubt, completely draped it Godfrey examined it with shining eyes. Then he walked straight to the end of the building.

“Now, Lester,” he said, “I’m going to make a prediction. I predict that we’ll find the wall at the cornet freshly scratched in more than one place. Ah, now, see there.”

The marks were plain enough and the cluster of heavy vines which ran up here against the house also showed signs of abrasion.

“What would you say those marks meant, Lester?” Godfrey asked.

“I should say,” I answered, readily enough, “that someone had recently climbed up to the balcony or down from it.”

“Both ways, Lester; both up and down! Oh, this is much simpler than I’d expected! Now take us up to the rooms, Thomas.”

But in the vestibule he paused.

​“Is that the rack where the coats hang, Thomas?” he asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“And where Mr. Drysdale hung his coat that night?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did you happen to notice, Thomas, when he came in, whether or not the top button of his raincoat was missing?”

“Yes, sir,” answered Thomas slowly; “I thought about it afterwards, and it’s mighty funny, sir, but I’d swear he had his coat buttoned up tight around his throat. How could he a-done that if th’ top button wasn’t there?”

“How, indeed?” mused Godfrey, gazing at the rack with eyes intent.

Then they softened, brightened; his face broke into a smile.

“Of course,” he said, half to himself; “how dense of me not to have thought of it!” Now, Thomas, we’ll go upstairs.”

CHAPTER VII

The Key to the Mystery

THOMAS led the way through the hall and up the stair.

“Which room will you look at first, sir?” he asked.

“Let us see Mr. Tremaine’s room first.”

“Very well, sir,” said Thomas, and opened a door and stood aside to let us pass.

There was nothing at all extraordinary about the room. It was large, well-lighted, well-ventilated, well-furnished—just the sort of bedroom one would naturally expect to find in a luxurious country-house.

Godfrey cast a glance about it, then he went to one of the windows, opened it, and stepped out upon the balcony. He walked along the balcony to the end where the heavy creepers were, took a look at them, and finally came back to the window.

“That’s all,” he said, as he stepped through into the room. “Of course, I didn’t expect to find anything here—our friend is much too clever to be caught napping that way. Thomas, I suppose this table is just where it was when Mr. Tremaine had the room?”

“Yes, sir.”

Godfrey sat down at it, measuring the distance from it to the window.

“Lester,” he said, “I wish you’d go out and come up the walk and see if you can see me sitting here.”

​I ran down the stairs and did as he directed, but could catch not a glimpse of him.

“Well?” he called down, coming to the open window.

“I can’t see you at all,” I said.

“I thought so. Come up again.”

He was sitting again at the table when I opened the door.

“Now, take a look at it, Lester,” he said. “You’ll see that the table is so far away from the window that it’s quite impossible for anyone on the ground outside to see the person sitting at it. Yet Drysdale stated distinctly that he saw Tremaine sitting at the table writing when he came back from that mysterious walk. What would you argue from that?”

“That Tremaine had moved the table nearer to the window.”

“And why should he do that?”

“To get a better light, perhaps,” I ventured.

“He might have done it, in the daytime, to get a better light, but at night he would get a much worse one over there by the window than here. The lights, you’ll observe, hang from the centre of the ceiling.”

“Then he did it,” I said, “in order that he might be seen from outside.”

“That’s it; not only that he might be seen, but that Drysdale might see him. I wonder if this is the kind of paper he wrote on?”

“We keep a supply of it in all th’ guest rooms, sir,” volunteered Thomas.

Godfrey took it up and looked at it. It was a plain white linen of good quality, with the word “Edge​mere” embossed in blue at the top. There were also on the table pens, an inkstand, and two or three blotters. He turned the blotters over, but only one of them showed any sign of having been used, and the marks on it were very faint—yet they seemed to interest Godfrey. He bent over them with puzzled face; then he got out a little magnifying glass and studied them again.

“Lester,” he said, at last, “I wish you’d take a look at this,” and he pushed the blotter and glass toward me. “What do you make of it?”

I gazed through the glass at the marks, but for a moment could make nothing of them. Then they resolved themselves into a string of letters marching backward, fairly distinct at one end but fading away to nothingness at the other, thus—

“Somebody seems to have been scribbling a lot of disconnected letters on a piece of paper,” I said, at last. “I can’t make out any words. The letters seem to be mostly B’s and G’s—yes, and here’s an I.”

“Thomas,” said Godfrey, “will you go down and ask Mr. Delroy if he has a sample of Mr. Tremaine’s handwriting, and, if so, if he will let us see it for a moment?”

Thomas went out instantly and I looked at Godfrey in surprise.

“You think those marks have some value?” I asked.

Godfrey drummed absently on the table and stared out of the window.

​“I don’t know,” he answered; “but in an investigation of this kind, no point is too small to be important. We’ve got to examine everything, weigh everything, pile up every little atom of evidence, if we expect to tip the scale in our direction. It’s very probable that Tremaine never made these marks at all; even if he did, they probably have no significance. But, in any event, it won’t do any harm to make sure; and, besides, I’d like to see a sample of his handwriting, just for its own sake—the handwriting of a man like that ought to be interesting. Ah, here is Thomas.”

“Here’s a letter, sir,” said Thomas.

Godfrey opened it and glanced at the contents.

“He’s a good penman,” he said; “see, Lester,” and he handed me the sheet; “but it’s quite a different hand from the one on the blotter—much broader and more masculine—just such a hand as one would naturally expect a man like Tremaine to write.”

He examined it again for a moment, then folded it up, and handed it back to Thomas.

“Perhaps Mr. Delroy will want it again,” he said. “Now, let us see Mr. Drysdale’s room.”

As he got up from the table, I noticed that he still held the blotter in his hand, and I saw him place it carefully in an inner pocket. After all, then, he did attach some importance to it.

The room which had been occupied by Drysdale was the counterpart of Tremaine’s, but it was in great disorder. An open trunk stood in the middle of the floor, with clothing strewn about it; the bed had not been made…

“We was ordered not t’ do anything toward settin’ ​this room to rights,” explained Thomas apologetically, “till the coroner sent us word we might. He ain’t sent no word yet.”

It was evident that Drysdale had been packing very hastily when he was interrupted by the arrival of the officers. The clothing which was in the trunk had been crammed in carelessly—though, of course, that might have been done by the coroner, after searching it.

“Drysdale evidently didn’t spend much time in bed that night,” observed Godfrey, and indicated a pile of cigarette stubs heaped high on an ash-tray on the table. “He must have had some knotty problem to wrestle with to need so many.”

He walked slowly about the room, looking at everything keenly, but touching nothing; he stood gazing at the bed for a long time. Then he turned again to the table.

“Here’s the diary,” he said, picking up a little book which lay there. “So Heffelbower didn’t get it. Well, I guess I’d better see that he doesn’t have another chance.”

He weighed it in his hand, and I could see how it tempted him—perhaps here lay the very key which he had been seeking in vain! But in a moment he slipped it unopened into his pocket.

“A man is a fool to make promises,” he observed, with a wry smile, and sat down at the table. “Hello, what’s this?” he added suddenly, and, stooping, he fished from the waste-basket beside him the fragments of a cane.

It was a cane certainly of at least ordinary strength, ​and yet it had been broken into half a dozen pieces, and hurled into the basket.

Whistling softly to himself, Godfrey surveyed it for a moment; then he bent over the basket and examined the remainder of its contents, piece by piece. There were scraps of letters, a torn envelope, a crumpled sheet of paper…

He sprang to his feet with a cry of triumph and waved it in the air.

“I’ve found it!” he cried, his face beaming. “I’ve found it, Lester!”

“Found what?” I questioned, more and more astonished, for Godfrey was usually master of his emotions.

“Ah, Lester,” he continued more calmly, as he smoothed it out carefully on the table, “this takes a lot of conceit out of me. Had I been really clever, I’d have deduced the existence of this message long before I entered the room. As it is, it’s luck—pure luck! I’m glad to win on any terms, but I’d rather win by scientific deduction. C. Auguste Dupin would have come straight upstairs, walked straight to that basket, and selected unerringly this sheet of paper—he would have known that it was there; while I—well, one can only do one’s best, and this point was a little too fine for me. Take a look at it.”

It was a sheet of the ordinary Edgemere note paper. Across it, two lines were written:

Be at the pergola at nine.
If I am late, wait for me.

G.

“Well,” I faltered; “well——”

​“Oh, don’t you see, Lester, it’s the key to the whole problem. It’s the light we’ve been looking for—with our eyes shut! And to think that instead of coming straight here for it, I should have stumbled about in the dark for so long. It’s the only possible explanation, and yet I didn’t think of it. It was inevitable from the first, and yet I couldn’t see it. It disgusts me with myself—it’s what I get for being so cocked up over finding that bottle down there. Even after I saw that blotter, I didn’t guess it!”

He had taken out a card, and as he spoke he wrote a rapid sentence on it,

“Here,” he said to Thomas, “take this to Miss Croydon at once, please.”

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