PART FOUR—IN THE ROUND ROOM

I

A tall gentleman of thirty-eight having still something of the boy about him. Nice eyes, but otherwise a little soft in the face. A man of quick, warm emotions one would say, but perhaps not much staying power. Dressed like an Englishman, which is to say in comfortable clothes of good material, not ironed and fitted to extinction. But notwithstanding the clothes, unmistakably a good American by his glance of slightly derisive good humour. Not at all a remarkable person, yet he brought a certain high assurance into my office, that I was at a loss to account for until he gave me his name: Norbert Starr. I looked at him with a quickened interest; it was his vast wealth, of course, which had given him that air of being set a little apart from his fellows. Everybody knows more about the Starrs than about their own best friends; all the brothers and sisters have so thoroughly and repeatedly aired their domestic difficulties in the courts. Norbert's case was not the least conspicuous among them.

I carried his name into Mme. Storey, and presently ushered him into her presence. From the manner of their greeting I gathered that they had met before, but only casually. Mr. Starr cast an appreciative glance around at my mistress's room.

"I wish I could get an effect like this," he murmured, "but it takes genius."

Mme. Storey smiled in her slow way. She is not insensible to the right sort of flattery.

Mr. Starr's eyes twinkled at the sight of Giannino in cap and bells, making faces at him from a corner. The man was no fool. One liked him rather, in spite of his disgusting riches.

I understood by a private sign from my mistress that she wished me to remain in the room. When he saw me sit down, Mr. Starr looked a little blank. It became evident that under his air of careless good humour he was nervous. He was understood to murmur politely that he would like to speak to Mme. Storey alone, to which she made her usual reply:

"Miss Brickley is present at all interviews. She is my memory."

He took the seat she indicated, but seemed to be at a loss how to begin. Mme. Storey offered him a cigarette, and took one herself. That helped. He presently said with a careless laugh, which was not, however, without a note of bitterness:

"I assume that you know all about me from the newspapers. It will save time."

"I know what the newspapers report," said Mme. Storey dryly, "but I do not suppose that is the whole story."

"Oh, it's true in the main," he said. "We Starrs seem to have made a mess of things generally. We're not a bad lot, either. But I suppose we haven't got the moral natures to measure up to our incomes."

"Nobody has," said Mme. Storey. "Moral natures are only developed by poverty."

"You're right of course," he agreed. "Money's a curse, just as the copy-books say. But what is one to do?"

Mme. Storey shrugged.

"Life gets you into a net," he murmured, lowering his eyes. "Not being of heroic stuff, I have never been able to cut myself out."

This was rather painful to hear from the boyish man with his happy-go-lucky air.

"You are frank about yourself," said Mme. Storey kindly.

"Not much use my coming to see you if I were not," he murmured.

Mme. Storey merely waited for what was coming.

"I was married when I was twenty-three," he said, plunging all at once into the middle of his story. "I was seeing life, you understand. The usual young fool! My father gave me as much money as I wanted on condition that I used an assumed name in my pleasures, and did not run any bills...Did you ever meet my wife?" he broke off to ask.

Mme. Storey shook her head.

"No, you wouldn't," he went on. "She was Bessie Jewett, the elder of the Jewett sisters, famous music hall stars of that day. They were the queens of the silly little world I moved in, the world, I thought it was. That is, Bessie was the queen, for Tessie, the quiet one, was no more than a foil for her. I thought in my youthful vanity that Bessie was taking me for myself alone. I meant to surprise her on our wedding day with my real name. But it was no surprise to her. In fact, she...Oh, well, I don't want to abuse her. I need only say that she was ten years older than I. I was married before I had time to take a long breath.

"I was speedily disillusioned, of course. From the first day she had me with her bad temper. I hate rows. I gave in to her, and of course every time I gave in, it made my position more abject. She retired from the stage and set up as an exemplar of respectability. She assaulted the citadels of society—there was a society in those days, and was humiliatingly repulsed. She found to her astonishment that money couldn't buy some things. It turned her temper worse than before. Like most violent people, I believe that she is a little unhinged. But that doesn't help me any. Her mother is quite mad.

"Her crowning folly was the building of Bolingbroke Castle—she claims to be descended from Henry Bolingbroke, you know. Not that it matters. A castle she had to have, reproduced stone by stone from one of the mediæval fortresses of England. I weakly assented—anything for peace, without realising what I was being let in for. It was from the castle that she designed to make her grand sortie upon society. It was five years building; five years it kept me poor. I never told anybody how much it cost me; I was ashamed. I will say, though, that during those years I enjoyed a kind of peace. She had an absorbing object in life that kept her busy; then, too, she had to be half-way decent to me in order to extract the vast sums of money that were called for.

"But when it was finished I discovered that she expected me to go there and live with her. I balked at that. It is really a magnificent pile, I believe; she had the wit to employ the best talent. In fact, it made the fortunes and the reputations of a small army of architects and decorators, though it never did its owners any good. Perched up there on Patching Mountain overlooking a sea of suburban villas with fertilizer factories in the distance! How unspeakably ridiculous! A donjon keep with battlements and machicolations. Stone-vaulted corridors and vast chambers. Fancy living in such a place. A common or garden American like me. It made me turn hot and cold to think of the way my honest neighbours would grin when they caught me driving in or out of the place.

"It was the castle which finished me. I visited Bessie there two or three times, but the spectacle of the ex-music hall favourite established amidst such grandeur was too much. My God! she was so common! It gave me the courage to chuck it altogether. She raged like a madwoman—she always claimed that it was my abandonment of her that prevented her from getting into society, but I kept out of her way. I felt as light as air.

"In the course of time she resigned herself to the situation and set her wits to work to devise ways of tormenting me. That has become her grand object in life. She sued for and obtained a judicial separation, and the court awarded her an enormous allowance which I do not begrudge her, God knows! I'd give up every cent I possess sooner than live with her again. She still lives with her mother and sister in that nightmare of a castle. With what guests she can bribe to come visit her. Second-rate hangers-on.

"One of her latest caprices was to drive tally-ho up and down the precipitous Patching roads. Oh, she has courage of a sort. The spectacle has been described to me; the gargantuan purple-faced Bessie, attired in pale pink perched up on the box screaming curses at the horses, while some trembling sycophant beside her held a pink parasol over her head. Ah! if she had only broken her neck that way! After one or two narrow escapes of doing so, she probably reflected that the risk of giving me my final release was too great, and she gave away the horses.

"I was not long exulting in my freedom before I learned that I was not free at all. Therein lay her cunning. Legally I am still her husband, and she takes care not to let me forget it. She is continually bringing ridiculous suits against me, which she invariably loses, but she gains her object, which is to drag my name into the newspapers again. And one way or another I always have to pay the costs. She is a woman who must continually be engaged in litigation.

"She has me constantly watched and followed. She has a trick of turning up to accost me when I am entertaining friends, or whenever she thinks it will most humiliate me. There have been times when I have been ready to die under the crude humiliations she has put upon me—this woman who spends a thousand dollars a day of my money. I needn't go into details. She is certainly insane. Her hatred of me has become a mania, and she will stop at nothing in order to gratify it. Nevertheless, until lately I was prepared to put up with all this. A man always has ways of escape. But now...but now..."

He hesitated. It was not hard to guess what was coming next.

"I came here to make a clean breast of the matter," he presently went on in a lower tone. "...I have fallen in love with another woman. The real thing. It is the first time I have experienced it. It changes the whole colour of my life. With the help of such a woman I might make something of myself. I feel as if she were my only hope of salvation I may say that she loves me in return...But with such a woman as she, there could not be any relation except an open and straightforward one I am bound to this other! Is it any wonder I feel as if I were going out of my mind!

"You have all my sympathy," said Mme. Storey gently. "But—if you will pardon the blunt question, why do you come to me? Should you not rather consult your lawyer?"

"Oh, I've been in the hands of lawyers for the past eight years!" he said hopelessly. "What Bessie has left me they have taken. I have sued her for divorce. My case was thrown out of court. She takes good care to give me no legal cause. Moreover, it appears that the judicial separation militates against it. Oh, she has me tied hand and foot."

"I must repeat my question," said Mme. Storey. "Why do you come to me?"

"You are a psychologist," he said with a wistful air; "not a mere professor of psychology, but a practising psychologist. On every hand I hear of the wonderful things you have accomplished through your extraordinary insight into the human heart—particularly the feminine heart..."

"Mostly in the direction of solving crime, was it not?" asked Mme. Storey with rather a wry smile—this is a sore point with her.

"Yes," he admitted, "but why stop with crime? The same gifts would enable you to..."

"Surely," said Mme. Storey. "When I began to practise, I scarcely considered crime. I hoped to do a little towards straightening out tangled human relations...Unfortunately I soon discovered that wrong people do not want to be set right. So crime was about all that was left for me...What is it exactly, that you wish me to do?"

"See my wife," he pleaded. "With your skill you can surely bring her to listen to reason. She has nothing to gain by her present course. She..."

Mme. Storey interrupted him with a grave shake of the head. "You overrate my skill," she said. "I am sorry, but I cannot undertake it. In the first place it would make matters worse—you have drawn only too convincing a picture of your wife. Any move that I might make would only gratify her hatred...In the second place, after one or two unfortunate experiences I was obliged to make an absolute rule never to undertake anything in connexion with marital relations."

It was only too clear that she meant what she said, and Mr. Starr wasted no time in attempted persuasion. He got up heavily. There was now no look of youth about him. "I scarcely expected you to say anything else," he said dully. "I just took a chance. One snatches at anything...It is only too true you cannot touch pitch without being defiled...You think there is no hope for me then, short of my wife's death?"

"I must be honest with you," said Mme. Storey gravely. "I see none."

He went out without another word.

"A pitiful case," murmured my mistress, abstractedly extinguishing her cigarette. "The girl he is in love with is Mary Lansdowne. I had it from another source. She's a girl in a thousand..."

II

During the afternoon of the same day, the door of my office was rudely pushed open, and a monumental female strode in. I knew at a glance it could be no other than the famous Bessie Jewett Starr. Monumental! I ought rather to have written mountainous! A tall woman and fat beyond all credence. Her fat was accentuated by the harness she wore which thrust it out at you, so to speak. And all this was swathed in yards and yards of mauve chiffon which made her look even bigger. Her face was puffy and, I suspect, scarlet in its natural state. Coats of whitewash had reduced it to a strange violet hue. Perhaps that was why she wore mauve. She was dressed to represent thirty years old; a simple-minded person might have been deceived. You could see that she had once been a gloriously beautiful woman; that made the ruin more tragic. She demanded to see Mme. Storey. Her arrogant glance bade me to fall down and grovel at her feet.

I did not.

"If you will wait a moment..." I began.

"I am Mrs. Bessie Jewett Starr; I am not accustomed to be kept waiting," she said, and thrusting me out of her path (she was several times my size) she opened the door of Mme. Storey's room.

I was not much put about, for I knew she'd meet her match in there. I followed to see the fun.

Giannino fled to one of the picture frames where he sat squeaking with indignation.

Mme. Storey was writing at her table. She looked up calmly. "Ah, Mrs. Starr," she said at once.

"You know me!" exclaimed the fat woman, somewhat taken aback.

"How could I fail to do so?" said Mme. Storey sweetly. "Won't you sit down?"

Mrs. Starr sat on the edge of a Florentine chair, which creaked alarmingly. I saw a lightning glance of anxiety cross Mme. Storey's eyes—not for the woman, but for the chair.

"You'll find the upholstered chair more comfortable," she said politely.

Mrs. Starr merely glared at her and at me, and settled herself more firmly where she was.

"A cigarette?" asked Mme. Storey.

"I don't use them," snapped Mrs. Starr.

Mme. Storey helped herself from the silver box, and lighting up with a malicious deliberation, puffed a great cloud of smoke towards the ceiling. Mrs. Starr watched her, biting her lip. Her brusque entrance having fallen flat, the fat woman found herself for the moment at a loss. Her eyes glittered painfully and hatefully at my mistress. Mme. Storey, beautiful, slender and smiling, was a ghastly reproach to the other woman. Under any circumstances Mrs. Starr would have been obliged to hate her.

Suddenly Mrs. Starr said, like the villainess in a melodrama, through her teeth: "My husband's been here!"

"But yes!" said Mme. Storey, elevating her eyebrows. "Why not?"

"I can see that he has filled you up with his slanderous lies about me!"

"Oh, I wouldn't say that," said Mme. Storey deprecatingly. "He must have drawn me a fairly true portrait of you, mustn't he? because you see, I recognised you at once."

The fat woman snorted with rage. "What did he come for?" she demanded.

"I must plead privilege there," said Mme. Storey blandly. "A professional matter."

"Professional! Do you call this a profession? Snooping, I call it!"

Mme. Storey smiled delightedly at her cigarette.

"I know what he came for!" Mrs. Starr went on in a strident, hateful voice that made one ashamed for her; made one wish not to see her give herself away like that. "He came here to hire you to help him get rid of me! Well, I wish you joy of the job! He's tried everything already. And here I am still. I'm a healthy woman, too, thank God! I'll live for twenty-five years yet to plague him! I'll outlive him, the poor weed! He has no constitution."

"Ah," said Mme. Storey, "you are strongly attached to him!"

"Attached to him!" shouted Mrs. Starr. "I despise him! A worthless idler. Never did a day's work in his life. Always going around and whining against me to anybody who will listen to him! He's not a man! There isn't a bone in his body. A jellyfish!"

"I should think you would have cast him off long ago," remarked Mme. Storey with a dry affectation of sympathy.

"Oh, do you," said Mrs. Starr with a hateful smile. "Well, that's my affair...I don't believe in divorce."

The last statement sounded unspeakably droll from those angry lips. Mme. Storey looked at me, her face broke up incontrollably, her silvery laugh was heard. The sound of it set me off, too.

It infuriated the fat woman. She sprang up and started cursing us like a drunken teamster. It was startling, but it was very funny. I'm afraid we only laughed the more.

Mrs. Starr shook a stubby forefinger at Mme. Storey. Until I saw her, I didn't think anybody did that except on the stage. "I came here to warn you to keep out of this," she shouted. "If you don't, you better look out, that's all. I can make myself damned unpleasant when I want..."

"So I see," murmured Mme. Storey—but I doubt if Mrs. Starr heard her. She was shouting too loud.

"If anybody makes an enemy of me, I don't care what I do! If you don't believe me, ask your friend Norbert! He can come snivelling around to you or anybody, but he dare not stand up to me!"

There was a lot more of this. Mme. Storey, making her eyes big, wickedly led the woman on. I'm afraid my mistress was enjoying the situation. Giannino got hysterical. I was obliged to capture him, and put him in his box in the middle room.

Mrs. Starr did not see my mistress press the button under her desk, but I did.

"I'll expose you in the newspapers," the former was shouting. "I can command as much space as I want! How will you like that? How will you like that?" More play with the forefinger.

The door from my office opened, and John, our stalwart young engineer, appeared. He had eyes for no one in the room but Mme. Storey. John would jump off the top of the Woolworth Building to serve her.

"John, this lady feels unwell," said Mme. Storey blandly. "Will you please assist her to her car downstairs?"

John got it. "This way, ma'am," he said briskly.

For the space of a moment Mrs. Starr was struck dumb with indignation. Then speech returned with a roar. "I'll go when I get damned good and ready!"

John merely smiled hardily, and made a significant move towards her.

"I am Mrs. Bessie Jewett Starr!" she shouted. "Don't you dare to lay hands on me!"

"I don't care if you're Mary Queen of Scots," said John unabashed. "Come on, if you don't want to be helped."

Mrs. Starr suddenly thought better of it, and bolted through the door. These people who deal in imperatives always run the risk of coming up against an imperative. For a fat woman she moved with an astonishing celerity. John touched his cap to Mme. Storey, and followed, grinning.

Presently we heard the resounding slam of a car door in the street. Mme. Storey disdained to look out of the window, but I could not be so strong-minded. I saw the superbly appointed car move away, with the wooden chauffeur in front—he kept his face though his mistress could not. I saw her, and she saw me. She leaned over and, looking up, shook her fist at me like a washerwoman. I burst out laughing afresh. It was so exactly in character!

"What a woman!" I said as I left the window.

"Suffers from an inferiority complex," said Mme. Storey, lighting a fresh cigarette. "That's always what's the matter with these shouters."

III

We supposed that the incident was closed as far as we were concerned, and thought no more about it. Three days later, at noon, a man's voice on the telephone asked for Mme. Storey. I did not recognise the voice, but I did apprehend the tremor of a desperate agitation in it; and, as I switched the call into my mistress's room, I wondered what new excitement was in the wind.

Almost immediately she came out of her room, and I saw by her face that I was not mistaken as to the seriousness of the matter.

"Bella," she said, "Mr. Norbert Starr telephones that his wife has just committed suicide while he was in her house."

A quiet announcement like this does not alarm the nerves. I suppose I said: "Is that so?" or something like that. A moment later the sense of it reached me. "My God!" I weakly ejaculated, staring, no doubt, like a clown.

"He begs me to come to his aid," said Mme. Storey.

"But...but..." I stammered in confusion, "if she's killed herself he doesn't need any aid, does he?"

Mme. Storey looked at me queerly. "Think, Bella! Is it likely that that woman would kill herself?..."

Horror grew in me. "You think...?" I began.

"I think nothing yet," she said crisply. "...Come let's go. I really feel as if I owed it to the poor wretch. Did I not as good as tell him there was no release for him except through her death?"

I could not pull myself together all at once. In our business we are used to dreadful happenings, dear knows! But this was too shocking. Had not the woman herself been in our office three days before? Ordinarily we first hear of our tragedies after the event. We are not consulted in advance!

"Come, Bella, your hat!" said Mme. Storey impatiently. "We'll taxi out to Upper Bellaire. It will save precious minutes."

The entrance to the park surrounding Bolingbroke Castle was guarded by a pair of immense and beautiful wrought-iron gates. Just inside was a picturesque stone lodge in the English style. The gates were closed. When our chauffeur sounded a summons on his horn, the lodge-keeper hastened out of his door, but after looking us over, undertook to wave us away. Our Broadway chauffeur remarked upon his inhospitality with more force than politeness. The lodge-keeper merely pointed to a little sign outside the gates which had hitherto escaped our attention.

"Hired vehicles will use the East drive."

Mme. Storey and I looked at each other. How exactly characteristic of the chatelaine of Bolingbroke! The woman was rather splendid in her way. Certainly she stopped at nothing. Perhaps mediæval chatelaines were like that. Sooner than waste time by arguing with the lodge-keeper, who obviously did not yet know that the author of these regulations was lying dead in her castle, we obediently turned around and sought the humbler entrance.

The castle was truly magnificent. The approach was from below, and the foreshortened view of the piled, grey masses of masonry struck powerfully upon the imagination. There was a squat, grey central keep, with encircling walls flanked by smaller towers of different sizes and designs, all of the very stuff of romance. One wondered if after all there had been a strain of romance in the coarse-grained woman who had it built to order. Probably not—still it was a disconcerting thought. From the top of the great central tower a flag fluttered insolently against the sky. It bore a white swan on a red ground, a device that the owner had chosen for her own. A swan! Its purpose in flying was to advertise that the owner was in residence. Nobody had thought to pull it down.

It made one rub one's eyes to come upon such an apparition in Upper Bellaire. Of course when one looked closely there were certain anachronisms; the plantations were rather immature, and the rear premises had somewhat of a Bellairish look. One remembered the thirty tiled bathrooms the place was said to contain. I think it was thirty. That would have amused the Normans.

I had only time to receive the swiftest impression of the place ere we were swallowed up in the tragedy which filled it. The inside servants knew what had happened. They stood or moved about in dazed attitudes as if a spell of horror had been laid on them—men in gorgeous liveries and maids peeping from around doors. It was touching, the eager expectant way they looked at my composed mistress, counting on her to lift the spell.

We were received in the gloomy lower entry by the butler, quite a personage on his own account in sober dress. But a shaken personage now. His face was ashy, and his hands trembled. Without a word being spoken, he led us up a shallow, sweeping stone stairway into the great hall of the castle. The entrance had purposely been made dark and restricted. Rising from those depths one's breath was taken away by the great hall. It soared thrillingly to a pointed roof like a cathedral; there were no windows low down, but the whole place seemed to sing with the warm colour that was admitted through the painted glass above. Fancy all that to house one fat woman! Why, the coal necessary to heat it in winter would have kept a whole village comfortable.

As received from the architects and decorators I expect the place was all in keeping, but it was inevitable that innovations should have been introduced. One perceived examples of the Jewett taste here and there; a large phonograph in a Jacobean case à la Camden, N. J.; a pair of those perfectly useless torch lamps that have lately become so popular. Among such objects my eye was attracted by a large photograph in an over-elaborate silver frame. It depicted two young women in incongruous costumes consisting of ragged short skirts, torn blouses, expensive slippers and enormous picture hats. Tasteless photograph, tasteless costumes, but the girls were of really remarkable beauty. Their faces haunted you. I did not need to be told who they were. They were very much alike, but it was not hard to pick out the bold Bessie from the meek Tessie.

All this I got in passing. Crossing the tessellated floor of the great hall, we struck into a corridor whence we entered a beautiful panelled chamber—filled with stuffed velure furniture. Such were the contrasts of Bolingbroke. In this room Norbert Starr was walking up and down with a tragic assumption of composure. For his lower lip was hanging down loosely, and his eyes were simply witless from shock.

Before Mme. Storey was well inside the room, he ran to her and picked up her hand. His face worked so, he could scarcely get any words out. "Ah, you've come! Thank God! How kind of you! I had no right to expect it!...But if I had not someone to turn to, I'd go out of my mind!"

Mme. Storey sought to stiffen him. "Ah, come!" she said resolutely. "We are grown-up people. We can look ugly facts in the face, I hope. Why should you...?"

"Ah! you know what they'll say! you know what they'll say!" he stuttered with a distracted gesture. "Come!"

He led the way out of the room. We walked the whole length of the stone-paved, stone-vaulted corridor, which was lined with armour and antique weapons and conspicuously worm-eaten oaken furniture. No one had given the butler an order, but he followed at our heels with his head sunk between his shoulders as if he simply had to attach himself to somebody. Obviously a man accustomed to command, it was disconcerting to see him so unstrung. All the doors opening out of the corridor were shut. One wondered what was behind them.

The end of the corridor was closed by a little pointed door with great ornamental hinges stretching all the way across it, nicely blacked. Such are the things that one notices at such a moment. Opening this door, we passed through a sort of vault, and thence into a smaller corridor running transversely to the other. On our left it was closed by another pointed door. This door had a knob sticking through a hole; you lifted it to raise the antique latch within. As Mr. Starr put his forefinger under the knob he hesitated, and I heard his breath hiss between his teeth. The heavy door swung slowly in, and he quickly averted his head.

We looked into a perfectly round room which evidently formed a storey of one of the flanking towers of the castle. It was very bare. One's eyes marked only a great flat-topped desk in the centre. On the floor between the desk and us lay what had been Bessie Jewett Starr. A great, inert huddle of flesh, all her violence was stilled now. She was enveloped in pale blue chiffon fresh as flower petals, which, like the costume of an actress in a tragedy, seemed to have been put on especially to enact this scene. One thick arm was extended before her, and the puffy fingers clasped a blued revolver. There was still a suggestion of gunpowder on the air. Her head and face were covered with a napkin.

From behind us like scurrying dead leaves came Mr. Starr's whisper: "She has not been moved not been moved...We waited for you."

And the butler like an echo: "Not moved...not moved...I just covered her face."

"Have you notified the police?" asked Mme. Storey.

"Oh, no, no, no, no, no!" stuttered Mr. Starr.

"But they must be notified!"

"What am I to say to them?" he wailed.

"The truth, I suppose."

"Of course...of course!...But I looked to you to steady me a little first. I am so unnerved I could not even be sure that I was telling the truth...And if they confused me, it would look...it would look...they would naturally believe...everybody will be prepared to believe..."

"Tell me what happened," said Mme. Storey quietly. "My mind is open."

He drew her a little away from the open door. He told his story in a whisper as if he feared the dead might overhear.

"When I left your office I didn't know what to do...I sat down and wrote to my wife asking her to let me talk to her. I thought perhaps I might buy her off. A foolish hope—but I was prepared to go high...After making me wait two days, she wrote, appointing eleven o'clock this morning. I had a premonition that my coming would be worse than useless...but one must do something!

"She had me brought to her in the round room here, which she uses as a sort of office. All her private rooms open off this corridor..."

"One moment," interrupted Mme. Storey, "where are the other members of the family?"

"Early this morning Miss Jewett took her mother in to New York to the doctor's. They have not returned."

"Go on."

"My wife received me with the sort of smile which always presages her most insane bursts of rage. I immediately regretted my coming; nevertheless I persevered. All the way here I kept saying to myself over and over: I will not lose my temper; I will not lose my temper; no matter what she says, I will not lose my temper. But that was the worst course I could have pursued. In her eyes the unforgivable sin was not to lose your temper...Need I say what passed between us? The usual thing. In fact I can scarcely remember. She deafened me with her screaming..."

"Better tell me as far as you can remember," said Mme. Storey.

He lowered his head. "She insisted on dragging in the name of a certain lady," he whispered. "The one I told you about. I thought I had been able to keep that...even from her. But it seems not. She made gross accusations. I could afford to smile at that. But finally it turned out that she had seen this lady. That...that was very hard for me to bear...But I swear to you, I stuck to the line I had laid out for myself. That was to ask her how much she'd take to release me. She said if I was ten times as rich as I am it wouldn't be enough...I permitted myself one retort. I did say that I would be happy in spite of her. Then she...she...then I got out..."

There was a fatal stammer at the end. One could not escape the suspicion that all had not been told.

"Go on," said Mme. Storey.

"I had no more than got out of the room when I heard the shot and the fall. I ran back. I saw her just as she is now. There was smoke floating in the air..."

"Where did she get the gun?" asked Mme. Storey.

"I...I don't know. I didn't see. Out of her desk I suppose."

"How long was it, precisely, after you had left the room when the shot was fired?"

"It was no time at all. I pulled the door to after me; my hand had no more than dropped from the knob; I had not taken a single step when I heard the shot."

"She must have moved with marvellous quickness," said Mme. Storey. "To get around the desk, I mean; to get the gun out; to get back in front of the desk where she now lies."

"I don't know..." he said, vaguely passing his hand over his face.

"Had she said anything to lead you to suppose that she might...?"

"Oh, no! no!...That was what shocked me so. I never dreamed of such a possibility. Not Bessie!...When I saw her lying there I could not believe my eyes. Bessie kill herself! My thought was there must be some humanity in her after all. Years ago there seemed to be...Her hatred of me was just a sort of obsession. She had had a lucid moment, and aghast at herself had snatched up the gun to set me free...That was what shattered my nerve. To find her lying dead by her own hand. Dead to set me free...And I hating her so...!"

Some moments passed before he was able to go on. "I ran down the corridor shouting for help," he whispered huskily. "Down the main corridor. I met no one until I got to the great hall. Pascoe was coming up the stairs. I brought him back with me. That's all...In my confusion my only coherent thought was of you. I telephoned you. I have simply been waiting..."

The butler kept up a sort of whispered chorus to this. "That's right...He met me coming up the stairs...I went back with him...It was terrible...terrible!...He telephoned. We've simply been waiting..."

"Did you hear the shot?" Mme. Storey asked the butler.

"No, madam. It was too far away. The doors are very thick."

Mme. Storey went into the round room, leaving us in the corridor. Mr. Starr still kept his head averted. My mistress went down on one knee beside the body. She did not raise the napkin as yet, but examined the revolver with close attention. Without removing it from the dead woman's clutch, she broke it, and looked in the magazine.

She presently arose, and her face was like a mask. I caught my breath, for I had learned to dread that look. "This pistol has not been discharged," she said. "The magazine is full."

There was a dreadful silence. Mr. Starr looked at her witlessly. "Wh-what did you say?" he stuttered.

"You said you found smoke in the room," Mme. Storey went on. "This pistol contains only modern smokeless shells.'

"She must have killed herself!" he said stupidly. "There was nobody else here...no other gun."

Mme. Storey shrugged her shoulders. She went down beside the body again. This time she lifted the napkin. I involuntarily turned my head. Thank God! it was not my business to make an examination.

"She was shot from behind," Mme. Storey said impassively. "This hole in her forehead was made by the issue of the bullet."

The man fell back against the wall. His voice scaled up shrilly. "Do you realise what you're saying?" he cried. "Do you think I have been lying to you...lying...?"

"Not necessarily," said Mme. Storey mildly.

"Oh, my God! what has happened then?" he cried, clutching his head. "What devilish combination of circumstances has come about? Who was it? Who was it?...You must believe me! You must! Why, if I had done it, how easy it would have been for me to discharge her pistol while I was waiting. But it never occurred to me. I was sure she had done it herself...Merciful Heaven! what will I do now?"

"Nobody has accused you," said Mme. Storey patiently. "With your help I will get to the bottom of the matter."

"Ah, no one will believe me now!" he cried despairingly.

"The police must be sent for," said Mme. Storey.

"Wait!" he cried sharply. "Give me a chance to collect my wits. First let us find out for ourselves what has happened."

"I can do nothing," said Mme. Storey firmly. "I must not disturb the body until the police have viewed it."

"Ah, wait! wait!" he cried. "You must listen to me. If it is true that you can read people's hearts you must know that I didn't kill her. But no one else will believe me...Before they come let me let me fire a bullet out of her pistol. Where would be the harm?...If I don't do it, it will mean the ruin of two lives. I swear I am not thinking of myself alone. There is another...I cannot bear the thought of wrecking her life..."

"This is useless," said Mme. Storey. "You know it is useless...Pascoe must telephone at once. In this county, I understand, the county prosecutor takes direct charge of all criminal investigations. Pascoe, telephone to his office and ask him to come at once."

The butler disappeared. Mr. Starr turned from us, wrapping his arms around his head like a man who had given up all hope.

I thought Mme. Storey was extraordinarily patient with the abject creature. A hint of disapproval must have shown in my face, for she murmured while his back was turned to us:

"Do not be too quick to jump to conclusions, Bella."

"But this unmanly panic!" I said.

"It doesn't prove anything. A guilty man is prepared for an accusation. An innocent man might well be thrown into a panic by it."

To Mr. Starr she said hearteningly: "Pull yourself together. Answer me a question or two."

"What's the use?" he said apathetically. "I'm a goner...I'd better blow my brains out at once and save the state money."

"And convict yourself without a hearing?" suggested Mme. Storey.

"It's nothing to me what they think. If I want to live it's for myself and one other. Popular opinion is nothing to me. I'm hardened to it."

"Then, for the sake of that other?"

"What is it you want to know?"

"What you held back when you first told your story. She could not possibly have got the gun out so quickly."

"No," he said dully. "She got it out of her desk while I was still in the room. She threatened me with it. That's why I got out."

"That alters the case somewhat," said Mme. Storey.

"It is useless for you to advise me to plead self-defence," he said. "If I had Bessie's blood on my hands, no matter how it came about, how could I...another woman...surely you must understand."

That simple cry of pain aroused my sympathies for the unfortunate man. I began to change my opinion.

Mme. Storey said quietly: "I was not going to advise you to plead self-defence...But, tell me, why did you keep this fact back in the beginning?"

"For a simple enough reason," he said with a shrug. "When I thought she had turned the gun on herself it seemed as if there was some good in her after all. I didn't want to blacken her memory any further. I thought she was sorry. I was sorry for her."

"Have you anything else to add to your first story?"

"No, I told you the truth...I don't suppose it matters."

IV

The hint of a case within the very walls of Bolingbroke Castle brought Mr. Ira Anders, the county prosecutor of Middlesex, on the run. He proved to be a slender little man with a big head and great round black-rimmed glasses. Dominant masculinity was his line. You know the type; the little dog making out to be a big one. His brow was furrowed like a mastiff's. Pascoe had given him no particulars over the phone, and when he learned that his "case" dealt with no less a matter than the apparent murder of Bessie Jewett Starr herself, his self-importance was shaken for a moment. But only for a moment. As the sweet assurance of undreamed-of publicity and fame stole into his soul, he began to swell bigger and bigger like the frog that sought to rival the ox. The magnitude of his opportunity rendered him a little breathless; the round glasses became moist with emotion, and he had frequently to wipe them. He looked around furtively for a telephone; clearly he burned to spread the marvellous news. But decency restrained him for a while. He brought with him a crude sort of county detective; an honest, red-faced yokel whose "bright" air was on a par with his master's heavy air. This creature's name, as I heard it, sounded like Kelliger.

Mme. Storey had refused to make any further move until the prosecutor arrived, and we were all waiting for him in the great hall. When he was introduced to my mistress it was clear that the name Storey suggested nothing to the suburban lawyer. He took it that she was merely a friend of the family's, and she let it go at that. Her beauty won a suitable tribute from his masculinity; he was very gallant. You know the sort of thing; so comical in a little man addressing a superb woman. He all but patted her hand and assured her that everything would be all right now that he had been called in. One foresaw a rude awakening for the little man. It was almost a shame.

On the other hand, the name of Starr had a magical effect on the attorney. His manner towards the unfortunate husband was as smooth as velvet. Mr. Starr merely looked at him in a bitter silence.

We all returned to the scene of the tragedy. There was a horrible formality about the procession; two and two down the long corridor. Mr. Anders, his eyes darting right and left to spy out the wonders of Bolingbroke, offered professional condolences to Mme. Storey the whole way, like an undertaker. Behind him walked Mr. Starr unseeing, unhearing, like a man in a trance. He had become so apathetic that he walked unmoved into the round room with the rest of us. But I noticed that he never looked directly at what lay on the floor.

"Ah, suicide!" said Mr. Anders with a world of melodious compassion in his voice.

"The pistol in her hand has not been discharged," said Mme. Storey.

"Eh, what?" exclaimed Mr. Anders, blinking behind the round glasses, and wrinkling up his forehead like our Giannino.

"She was shot from behind," said Mme. Storey in her quiet voice.

It was then that Mr. Anders really began to swell. A murder in Bolingbroke Castle, and he the prosecutor!

I went out of the room while he made his examination of the body. Afterwards somebody covered it with a green velure drapery brought from another room. It did not look any the less dreadful under that shroud.

Mr. Anders then set on foot a regular investigation. Such a man rejoices in formalities. He seated himself at the big desk, and had additional chairs brought in for the rest of us. There we sat. A curious inconsequence seemed to attach to the proceedings. The grim reality at our feet mocked at them.

Mr. Starr was the first and the principal witness. As he told his story the prosecutor's eyes glittered. His manner towards the witness underwent a notable change. He became the stern avenger of crime. In the end he even dared point an inquisitorial forefinger at the millionaire. Mr. Starr took his arrogance as he had taken his obsequiousness with the same dreary indifference. He answered all questions unhesitatingly, however they seemed to strengthen the case against him. Mr. Anders, satisfied that he had his man, only asked him such questions as would tend to incriminate him. Mr. Starr did not change his story in any important particular.

The butler, Pascoe, followed him. This Pascoe was a self-respecting middle-aged man with a manner considerably above that of a servant. I suppose his job at Bolingbroke called for a good deal of administrative ability. The prosecutor's aggressive manner had the effect of stiffening his backbone, and he gave his answers coolly enough. So far as it went his story corroborated that of Mr. Starr, and Anders naturally assumed that they were both lying. The prosecutor brought out one new point to which he made believe to attach great importance.

"When you were coming back to this room with Mr. Starr," he asked, "did you hear him say anything?"

"He was like a man half out of his senses," answered the butler. "He kept saying over and over: 'Oh my God! the poor soul! How I have wronged her!'"

"Ha!" exclaimed Anders, busily writing it down.

"I understood by that..." Pascoe went on.

"Never mind that."

But the butler persisted. "That as the result of a quarrel she had shot herself, and he regretted the quarrel."

"I am not interested in your deductions," said Anders loftily. "As you see, she did not shoot herself."

"But he thought she had."

"Please confine yourself to answering my questions."

Later Mr. Anders proceeded to delve a little into the past of the Starrs. "What were the relations between Mr. and Mrs. Starr?" he asked Pascoe.

The butler glanced at Mr. Starr and spread out his hands deprecatingly.

"That is no answer," said Anders.

"They have been separated for the past eight or nine years," said Pascoe.

"How long have you been working here?"

"Ever since the castle was completed, sir. That is ten years in the Spring."

"Then Mr. and Mrs. Starr were living together when you came here?"

"Mr. Starr occasionally visited the castle."

"What were the relations between them then?"

"Bad, sir," said Pascoe laconically.

"Very bad?"

"Very bad."

"Quarrels?"

"Continual quarrels. Mrs. Starr was a woman it was impossible to get along with."

"Yet you stayed with her ten years."

"I was not her husband, sir," said Pascoe dryly.

"You were her servant."

"Oh, she got to know a long time ago about how much I would stand. I was useful to her and she left me pretty much alone."

"In these quarrels that you refer to, did you ever hear any threats passed?"

"What sort of threats?" asked Pascoe guardedly.

"Threats of personal injury."

"From Mrs. Starr, often, sir. Not from Mr. Starr. He would simply leave the house."

This was not the answer Anders wanted, and he sneered. "You do not seem to have retained much loyalty towards your mistress—after taking her wages for ten years."

"I earned my wages, sir," said Pascoe quietly.

After Pascoe, Anders examined a number of lesser terrified servants. From none of them did he obtain anything of significance. None had been in that part of the castle. None had so much as heard the shot.

From the sample of Anders's cross-examination which I have given, it may be gathered that he asked only the obvious questions to which of course he received obvious replies. It was impossible for Mme. Storey to betray much interest in what was going on. She was not idle, though. I saw her fine, keen eyes travelling about the room, taking in every detail, from which, assuredly, she was drawing her own conclusions.

The round room was not the least incongruous in that incongruous castle. Wall and ceiling were hidden under a glorious oaken panelling, rich with antiquity, that must have been raped entire from some European stronghold. There were two Gothic windows filled with exquisite tracery containing leaded glass. Yet the floor was covered with battleship linoleum, and the dingy, flat-topped desk might have come out of a city editor's den. The other movables in the room were in keeping; some plain wood chairs, a filing cabinet, a typewriter on its stand and a cheap rattan sofa. Nevertheless, Pascoe had testified it was in this room that his mistress spent most of her time.

Mme. Storey, reading my thoughts, murmured: "Even Bessie Jewett Starr discovered at last that magnificence is fatiguing."

Pascoe, released from the witness chair, sent up trays of sandwiches and bottles of ginger ale, which we partook of very thankfully in an adjoining room.

Back in the round room again, it was Mme. Storey who discovered the bullet lodged in the panelling alongside the door. She called Mr. Anders's attention to it.

"Ah, yes, thank you," he said with rather a strained smile. "I have not come to that yet."

Mme. Storey made a whispered request of one of the footmen for a tape-measure which was presently fetched her. She measured the distance of the bullet from the floor. Mr. Anders affected to take no notice of what she was doing, but he looked rather annoyed.

It was about this time that the proceedings were interrupted by the sounds of an arriving automobile that reached us through the open windows. One of the windows of the round room commanded the main entrance to the castle, and Pascoe, glancing out, said with a dismayed look at the rest of us:

"It is Miss Jewett and the old lady coming home."

A horrified silence fell on the room. Who would tell them? was the general thought.

"It will have to be you, Pascoe," said Mme. Storey with concern. "I can't go to meet them in their own house. It would be an impertinence."

Pascoe bowed and went out of the room, leaving the door open.

During the succeeding moments the investigation faltered. Mr. Anders was nervous. I suppose we were all unconsciously listening for sounds from the house. I recalled that Mr. Starr had told us the mother of the two women was mad, and I shivered with apprehension.

But no distant shrieks, no sounds of any sort reached us until in a few moments there came soft hurrying footsteps along the corridor. Tessie Jewett came into the room, and stopped with a jerk just inside the door. Pascoe was behind her.

She presented a startling contrast to her sister. The strong facial resemblance was still there, but how different, how extraordinarily different! Tessie Jewett had grown gaunt and dull-looking with the years. It was well-nigh impossible to reconstruct the former music hall favourite from this dispirited and frankly middle-aged woman. Dull, worn and apathetic, the skin of her face was flabby and greyish; her hair dust-coloured. She was dressed in a ridiculous travesty of her sister's style, i.e. the ultra-fashionable woman. The rich garments hung anyhow on her angular frame; on her head was balanced some sort of tasteless hat that had no relation whatever to her dulled, simple face and sparse hair. To remind you of her former beauty only the large, dim blue eyes were left. They turned helplessly this way and that behind the old woman's spectacles that she wore. In a word, the very picture of an unmarried household martyr. Between a domineering sister and a mad mother what a life she must have led!

Her dazed and uncomprehending gaze fixed itself on the shapeless huddle under the green velure drapery, and her lips shaped some indistinguishable words. Raising her eyes at last, she looked at each one of us in a puzzled way, but the body, like a magnet, dragged them back to itself. She half lifted her hands in an ineffective way and let them fall again. Then I made out what it was she was trying to say.

"Oh, my God! What next? What next?"

It was unspeakably affecting.

Mme. Storey went to her in her large, grave way, and said simply: "I am Rosika Storey. I am here to help if I can."

Obviously the name meant nothing to Miss Jewett; nevertheless she retained Mme. Storey's hand, and pressed closer to her like a bewildered child. "I'm glad there's someone here," she whispered, "some woman. I wouldn't know what to do, myself."

All this time her fascinated gaze had never budged from what lay under the green velure. Everybody else in the room was silenced. According to their natures some looked out of the windows, and some gaped at the stricken sister.

At length she murmured huskily: "Who did it?"

"That's what we're trying to find out," said Mr. Anders, briskly moving his glasses up and down on his nose. His voice sounded thin and pert in that highly charged atmosphere. Puff himself up as he might, he was unable to measure to the situation.

"Don't you know who did it?" she asked in a curious, far-off whisper.

"It is not proven," said Mr. Anders significantly.

Miss Jewett slowly raised her dim, great beautiful eyes and let them rest accusingly on Norbert Starr. A shiver went through all of us. There was something so remote, so disembodied about her. That involuntary glance was more convincing than any of the evidence which had been brought out against the husband. I confess I was shaken by it. Yet Mr. Starr seemed not to be affected.

"Have you any reason to suspect anybody in this room?" asked Mr. Anders with a preternatural air of acuteness as if he alone had been capable of seeing what would have been patent to a child.

She quickly veiled her eyes. "Oh, I accuse nobody, I accuse nobody," she said nervously.

"Do you feel able to answer a few questions?" asked Mr. Anders.

She kept her eyes fixed on the body. "Ask me anything you want," she murmured dejectedly. "...What does it matter?"

"Did you know that Mr. Starr was coming to see your sister this morning?"

"No, sir."

"She did not tell you, then, that she had written to him, making the appointment?"

"No, sir."

"Do you not think she would have mentioned it to you if she had written such a letter?"

"I can't answer for what Bessie might have done."

"Has Mr. Starr been here at any other time recently?"

"No, sir."

"Your sister and he have not met at all, then, of late years."

"Bessie went to see him sometimes—when she wanted to plague him."

"I understood that you took your mother to the doctor today. Is that a regular duty of yours?"

"Yes, sir, every Thursday morning I take her in."

"It is well known then, that you and your mother are always away on Thursdays."

"I suppose so."

"Could not Mr. Starr have been aware of this fact?"

"Bessie told him, maybe. I don't know."

"Have you ever overheard Mr. Starr threaten harm to your sister, or do you know that he has ever done so?"

She shook her head heavily. "I accuse nobody."

"Have you ever heard your sister express a fear of him?"

Something about this question had the effect of unlocking the frozen woman's speech. But it still came out of her involuntarily, like the mutterings of one asleep. Her remote, bewildered eyes seemed to have no part in what she was saying. As is sometimes the case with elderly unmarried women her voice still had a suggestion of the immature girl in it, and she had reverted to the homely idiom of the village she had left so many years before.

"Oh, Bessie often said he'd like to do her in, but she wasn't really afraid of him. Bessie wasn't afraid of anybody. She had everybody afraid of her except Momma. Momma wasn't afraid of Bessie. They never could get along. Both too quick-tempered. And lately Momma brooded. She's not herself, you know. She'd done Bessie a hurt if she could. I had to watch her and keep her away. Momma's not herself any more."

What a picture of life in that tragic household this drew!

The apathetic voice droned on: "Of course, we could have put Momma away somewheres. Bessie wanted to. But I said no. No hired nurse could manage Momma like I can. I keep her with me. I sleep with her nights. Of course I wisht that Momma and I could have gone away somewheres together. But Bessie wouldn't let us. It would have left her alone here. She wouldn't have had anybody to jaw at but the servants. And they leave."

"Yes, yes. Most distressing!" said Mr. Anders impatiently. "But it hasn't got anything to do with the tragedy before us. I do not suppose that you mean to suggest your mother might..."

"Momma was with me all the time."

"Kelliger," said Mr. Anders, "uncover the hand."

A corner of the cloth was lifted, and the fat ringed fingers clutching the revolver were revealed once more. Though we had been conscious of it every minute, there was nevertheless a horrid shock in finding that it was still there. The hand had changed colour a little in the interim; grown more clayey.

"Do you recognise that pistol?" asked the prosecutor.

"I suppose it is Bessie's," Miss Jewett answered. "She's had it a long time. She threatened people with it when she was mad, but I don't know as she ever fired it off...The last time I seen it—if that is the same one, was one day when she run into the house in a passion to get it, saying that some common Irish from the village had brought their lunch into the Park..."

"Yes, yes," said Mr. Anders, "but that hasn't got anything to do with the matter before us..."

Once started, it appeared that the gentle, disembodied voice was not to be shut off. "...I never heard how it turned out. I expect it was Mitchell Crear, the tinsmith. Bessie's had trouble with him before. He was one of these red republicans that have it in for the rich. He'd go out of his way to spite Bessie, and made remarks as she passed by..."

Mr. Anders shook his head. "I'm afraid this has been too much for the poor lady," he remarked sotto voce to us. "It is impossible to get anything out of her."

"I will take her away," said Mme. Storey.

We left him to his ridiculous "investigation."

V

As we walked through the corridor, Miss Jewett murmured: "You mustn't mind Momma. I let her dress up to please herself. She is always quiet if you put her before a mirror."

I wondered if I could believe my ears.

Out in the great hall under the watchful eyes of two maids, we came upon the third member of the strange household. It was a woman incredibly old, incredibly made up. Her hair was dyed a strange bright red hue; her seamed and sunken cheeks were carmined. This strong colour simply obliterated the faded eyes that she could not restore. She seemed to have no eyes. Her thin bent frame was dressed in—how shall I describe it?—gewgaws and ribbons and laces seemed to be pinned at random all over her. She had all the tricks of a stage ingénue. One of the maids was holding a large hand mirror up before her, into which she smirked, endlessly prinking. The sight was too tragic for tears.

She saw us coming from afar, and simpered, and put her head on one side, and waved her hand in an affected fashion. When we came close, she said to Mme. Storey in her cracked old voice:

"How are you! I suppose I know you, but I forget who you are. I think you're very pretty."

"And I think you're pretty, too," said Mme. Storey, taking her hand, and smiling down at her.

A quick look of gratitude shot out of Miss Jewett's dim eyes. When she came into the presence of her mother, she no longer looked so remote and wandering. Her spirit seemed to brood over the helpless old woman.

Mrs. Jewett bridled and simpered and raised her shoulders in a killing way. "Me!" she said. "Oh, no! I can no longer pretend to have any looks with two such great girls. There was a time, my dears, when the gentlemen did not pass me by...Hold that glass up, girl...This is my baby, Teresa. She is a little backward...Have you lost your tongue, Teresa? Can't you speak to the lady?...My other girl Elizabeth has more of a spirit..."

Mme. Storey looked at Miss Jewett, and her lips shaped the words: "Have you told her?"

Miss Jewett nodded. "She can't take it in," she whispered.

"Can't take what in?" instantly demanded the old lady. "What are you keeping from me?"

"Bessie is dead, Momma," said Miss Jewett.

But the old lady's attention had already wandered. "Heigho!" she sighed. "It's a great responsibility bringing up girls! I was married at seventeen and left a widow before I was twenty. How'm I ever going to find husbands for them when the time comes...I hope you've come to lunch. We have better food when there's strangers here. Too many fal-lals. Don't you like apple dumplings?"

"Momma, Bessie is dead!" cried Miss Jewett in a dreadful low voice of pain.

Mme. Storey quickly laid a hand on her arm. "What does it matter?" she whispered. "It is better so."

"Apple dumplings," repeated the old lady unctuously. "Baked. With hard sause. Um yum..."

Presently a footman came to tell Mme. Storey that Mr. Starr would appreciate it, if she would return to the round room for a moment. I was thankful to get away.

As we entered the round room Mr. Starr said in a voice of cynical despair: "He's ready to lock me up now. I thought you'd better know about it."

Mr. Anders spread out his hands. "In view of what I have learned it has become my painful duty to order Mr. Starr detained in custody," he said. "You will appreciate, I am sure, that no other course is open to me."

Mme. Storey bowed without committing herself.

Mr. Starr sneered at the prosecutor's elaborate phraseology. He went direct to the heart of the matter. "You can't hang me until you find the gun with which I am supposed to have done it!" he cried in a voice reckless with pain. "That won't be easy. Why, it would have been suicidal to come to see that woman with a gun in my pocket."

"You have a perfectly good plea of self-defence," said Mr. Anders. "Why aren't you satisfied with that?"

"Ah, you're a fool!" said Mr. Starr.

Mr. Anders, with the expression of a man sorely-tried, looked towards Mme. Storey for sympathy. But my mistress kept her eyes down.

"You make a great point of the fact that I had a reason to kill her," Mr. Starr went on, "but you overlook the fact that I had a reason, every reason to live! I left my gun at home in my desk, where it may be found if you send for it."

"I suppose there is no reason why you may not have stopped on the way here and bought another gun," said Mr. Anders with that acute smile of his.

"Well, find it then," said Mr. Starr sullenly.

"That I shall," said the prosecutor. "You may remain here while we look."

A haphazard and unsystematic search followed. The bare room offered but a certain number of possible hiding places, and they looked in these over and over. The corridor down which Mr. Starr had run to summon help was searched, and finally Kelliger was sent outside the building to see if the pistol had been tossed out of one of the windows. Nothing came of it all.

While it was going on Mme. Storey sat in the round room pondering. That is how she generally looks for a thing. She was of course trying to reconstruct the assassin's course of reasoning. When Anders and Kelliger had come to a stand, and were looking around rather foolishly for new places, she said dryly:

"You have not moved the desk. There is room under the drawers on either side for a gun to be hidden."

"I was just coming to that," said Mr. Anders.

The desk was a heavy piece, and it was not upon casters. It required the combined efforts of Kelliger and Pascoe to move it. And there, on one of the dusty oblongs of linoleum that were uncovered, lay as if by magic another pistol. It was a bigger pistol than the one clutched in the dead woman's hand, an old-fashioned pistol.

It created an immense sensation in the room. Everybody (except Mme. Storey) looked at Mr. Starr as much as to say: That finishes you! I myself was badly shaken. Mr. Anders plumed himself ridiculously. He said with a sneer:

"I hope that satisfies you, Mr. Starr."

That unfortunate man was not thinking about him: He stared at the pistol as if it was pointed at his own heart, and a low, anguished cry escaped him. "God help me! How did that get there!"

Mme. Storey gave the pistol a close examination. She was rendered a little impatient by the general excitement. With her magnificent common sense she said:

"I cannot see that the finding of this gun alters the situation. It was conceded beforehand that somebody shot Mrs. Starr."

Her irony failed to reach Mr. Anders. He bustled in his triumph. "Kelliger," he said, "telephone to the Central station for the sergeant and a constable to come here and take Mr. Starr. Let them come in a taxicab."

Mr. Starr glanced imploringly at Mme. Storey, but she was still busy with the pistol. She scribbled the number of the weapon and the maker's name on a bit of paper and handed it to me.

"Telephone," she whispered, "and see if you can learn when that gun was first sold."

I left the room.

For some little time past I had been chafing at Mme. Storey's apparent supineness. Of course I knew she was simply biding her own time, but I wanted to see her show these people. When I returned, apparently the time had come for that. She arose.

"Mr. Anders," she said with the satirical-seductive smile that is her most effective weapon against men of his sort, "of course I'm only a woman, but I've been trying to put things together. I wish you'd let me tell you my theory."

That smile brought him up on tip-toe. He smiled back so gallantly, so indulgently. "My dear lady! I should be charmed to listen to anything you may have to say."

Said Mme. Storey: "I should say that Mrs. Starr was shot by a tall woman or a man of average height."

Mr. Anders blinked. This was hardly what he had expected. "What reason have you to think so?"

"The dead woman was five feet nine inches tall..."

"How do you know that?" he interrupted, round-eyed.

"She visited me three days ago, and my secretary happened to remark that she was the same height as myself."

"Very interesting. Very interesting. But, if I may ask, how does that apply here?"

"The bullet is lodged in the woodwork yonder exactly five feet seven inches above the floor. Mrs. Starr was shot, as near, as I can determine, two inches below the crown of her head. It must therefore be obvious to you that the bullet pursued an exactly horizontal course across the room. Need I go on?"

Mr. Anders's jaw had fallen lower and lower as she proceeded. Such words from the lips of a pretty woman! Trying to teach him his trade!

Mme. Storey continued, since he did not seem to be able to supply the rest. "A person must aim a gun on the level of his eye. It is true one reads in fiction of marvellous Westerners who shoot from the hip, but I think we may safely disregard that possibility...If I am right, Mrs. Starr must have been shot by a man or woman of about her own height, while Mr. Starr is..." She looked at him.

"Six foot one," he stammered, a wild hope dawning in his eyes.

Mr. Anders was very much discomposed. The gallant smile had become strained. "Very interesting; very interesting," he said, looking at his finger-nails. "But I am afraid your ingenious theory will hardly stand against the stubborn facts. If there was a third person in the room while Mr. and Mrs. Starr were talking, where was he hidden?"

"Under the middle part of the desk at which you are sitting," said Mme. Storey softly. "There is room there, you see, for a person to hide even from the sight of one who might be seated at the desk."

Like a wondering child, the little man ducked down and looked under the desk.

Mme. Storey went on: "Mr. Starr says he found her lying on the very spot where he had left her standing. And why not? The murderer had only to stand up to shoot. The shot came from the direction of the desk. And when the desk was moved you noticed, of course, when you examined the dust, that the revolver had been pushed under from the middle part."

"Of course I noticed it," said Mr. Anders.

"There was plenty of time for the murderer to escape while Mr. Starr was away fetching help," said Mme. Storey.

"How could he escape without being seen?" stammered Mr. Anders.

"Well, for one thing, there's another door in this room," she said coolly.

"Another door!" he echoed, gaping.

"Pascoe, is there not a door about there?" she asked, pointing to the panelling behind the desk.

"Yes, madam," he said unhesitatingly. "In the sixth panel counting from the other door."

"What is on the other side of it?"

"A circular stairway. There is a door at the foot of it leading to the rose garden. Mrs. Starr frequently went in and out that way. There was no secret about it."

"Can you open the door, Pascoe?"

"I think so, madame. I have seen Mrs. Starr open it when I have been in the room."

He went and felt about the woodwork. At length his fingers met the concealed spring, and the panel slid slowly back, and thudded against its stops. Within the dark aperture a circular stone stairway was revealed mysteriously rounding from above, only to be swallowed up below. What a glimpse!

We all peered fearfully into the place and listened.

"Why wasn't I told of this?" Mr. Anders demanded of Pascoe.

"You didn't ask me, sir," said Pascoe dryly.

"How did you know of its existence, madam?" the prosecutor asked my mistress with a glance of dark suspicion.

She smiled. "Oh, there's no magic in it. As we drove up to the castle I happened to notice that each of the flanking towers had its attendant turret built alongside, topped off with an extinguisher. It was customary in the period. The turret always contained a stairway with an opening to each floor of the tower."

"Hum!" said Mr. Anders.

He drew a revolver from his pocket, and started down the stairway.

Pascoe picked up a great key on the desk, saying: "I believe this is the key to the garden door, if you require it."

"That door is kept locked?" asked Mme. Storey.

"Oh, always, madam. Mrs. Starr would not have allowed anybody but herself to use that entrance."

"Well, if it's locked now, and the key's been lying here all the time, the murderer could not have got out that way."

Mr. Anders came back for the key, and resumed his way down. Mme. Storey followed, smiling. Pascoe and I brought up the rear. Mr. Starr was left under guard of Kelliger. The reawakened hope and anxiety in the unfortunate man's face was painful to see.

Well, we marched down the stairway, took a look at the rose garden, and marched back again. The garden, by the way, which was surrounded by an arbor vitæ screen, was a dream of secluded loveliness. But the door was locked, and it was evident no one could have got out that way.

Returning, Mr. Anders did not stop at the room we had set out from, but kept on up the stair. It was not absolutely dark, for there was a loophole or two in the thick stone wall. One made so many turns one lost all sense of direction. We came to a door which presumably gave on an upper chamber corresponding to the round room. It was locked, and having no key we kept on. Higher up, an arched opening led to another and a larger round chamber which was perfectly empty, floored, walled and vaulted with stone. It contained no windows, but in the edge of the floor all around there were curious holes, through which one could peer down to the ground far below.

"Machicolations, they are called," said Mme. Storey. "Through these holes the defenders could drop stones on anybody who might attack the base of the tower."

Fancy, in Upper Bellaire!

Continuing still higher, we issued out through the candle extinguisher she had spoken of, on to the flat roof of the tower. It was floored with thick sheets of lead—think of the expense nowadays! and surrounded by battlements. There was a widespread view of the salt meadows; a light haze lent even the distant fertilizer factories a charm; but at the moment we were looking for something else besides a view. The battlements were a good twenty-five feet above the main roof of the castle. No one could have escaped that way. There was nothing to do but go down again.

We paused by the locked door.

"What is this room used for?" Mr. Anders asked Pascoe.

"It has never been used, sir, so far as I know," the butler replied. "It is too remote from the rest of the house. Mrs. Starr may have stored some personal belongings there. I have never been in it."

"The key?"

"It has always been in her possession, sir."

"Well, if it's in her possession there's no use our looking in," he said, taking a leaf out of Mme. Storey's book.

But it is not safe to try to borrow her thunder. "May I have your flashlight?" she asked sweetly.

It was handed over to her. She turned it on the keyhole, and bent down to look.

"The key is on the inside," she said quietly.

VI

Her quiet words had all the effect of a small explosion among us. My heart began to beat thickly. Somebody was in that room! What fresh horror was in store for us? I heartily wished myself back in my quiet office. I do not like these sensational scenes.

Mr. Anders in great excitement beat upon the solid wood with the soft side of his fists. "Open the door!" he cried. "I am an officer of the law!"

No sound came to us from the other side.

He used the handle of his flashlight upon the door. "Open!" he cried louder; "or I'll break it down!"

This was easier said than done, for the door, like all the others, was presumably of two-inch oak, and there was not room enough on the narrow landing to wield a battering ram or to swing an axe.

"What shall we do?" the little prosecutor said helplessly.

"We can lower a man through the machicolations above, and let him smash a window," said Mme. Storey.

Before there was time to make a move in this direction, we heard the great key creak in the lock, and the door swung slowly in. It was not a formidable figure which faced us, but a woman with hanging arms and lowered head. A beautiful, slender creature with hair wall-flower brown, and dark curled lashes that swept her cheeks like an infant's. Her soft cheeks were hollowed and bloodless and when, finally, she raised her blue eyes they looked most piteously as if they had wept themselves dry of tears. One side of her pretty mauve dress was all fouled with brown dust as if she had flung herself down on the floor in her despair.

"Who are you?" gasped Mr. Anders.

The girl's pale lips essayed to move, but she was incapable of making a sound.

"Who is she?" Anders demanded in turn of Pascoe and Mme. Storey. They shook their heads.

Mr. Anders took her by the arm, and started to lead her unresistingly down the stairway. Before following, Mme. Storey took a survey of the room she came out of. It corresponded to the room below, but the stone walls had never been finished off with panelling. It contained nothing but some miscellaneous litter such as bundles of old papers, books, etc., all thick with dust. One of the books was a big scrap-book stuffed with press clippings. Mme. Storey's eyes gleamed at the sight of it. She said:

"Bring it downstairs, Bella. It may prove valuable."

As we were rounding the stairs, we heard a strange cry from Norbert Starr below: "Mary!...Oh, my God, what are you doing here?"

"Ah, poor souls!" murmured Mme. Storey.

When we got into the room the two had run together. Seizing Mr. Starr by his two elbows, the girl gave him a little shake in her relief and joy. Her frozen face melted; speech returned to her.

"Oh, Norbert!...Oh, Norbert! Thank God you're all right. I could not be sure...I could not be sure what had happened!"

The man's harassed face grew soft and youthful and he looked down at her. Clearly he forgot everything else when their eyes met. The girl, too.

"But, Mary, how did you get here?" he murmured.

"Oh, how can I tell you?" she said with a shudder. "It's been so dreadful and confused!...But it doesn't matter now. If you are safe."

Anders grew very impatient at being excluded from the scene. He assumed to be filled with moral indignation. "Come, Miss," he said sharply, "you must give some account of yourself."

The girl turned from Mr. Starr. A little colour had come back to her face, and she was getting her grip again. She had not yet perceived what was lying under the green shroud, because the big desk was in the way.

"What is your name?"

"Oh, don't drag her into this!" Mr. Starr exclaimed involuntarily.

"I don't mind telling him," she said. "My name is Mary Lansdowne."

This name suggested nothing to Anders. Mme. Storey and I knew it before it was spoken of course. I was filled with a great compassion for the pair—a great curiosity, too. What on earth was the girl doing there?

"Please explain your presence in this house," said Mr. Anders.

"I came to see Mrs. Starr at her request," was the rather surprising reply.

Norbert Starr was frankly amazed.

"You were on friendly terms with her?" asked Anders.

"I was not on any terms with her. I had never seen her before."

"Yet you are friends with her husband, I judge."

"Mr. Starr and I are friends."

"Very intimate friends, I take it."

The girl's chin went up. "That is not a question, but an insinuation," she said with spirit. "What right have you to question me, anyway? Who are you?"

"Anders, County Prosecutor of Middlesex," he said with an affectation of boredom.

The girl was shaken. "What has happened here?" she demanded.

"Do you not know?" sneered Anders.

"If I knew I would not ask you."

"Mrs. Starr has been shot dead."

The girl gazed at him in silent horror; glanced around at the rest of us for confirmation. Involuntarily, our eyes turned toward what lay on the floor. She ran around the desk and looked. She drew a gasping breath in her throat, and turning, flung an arm up over her eyes to shut out the sight. Strong shudders went through her slender frame. Mr. Starr's eyes dwelt on her, half sick with solicitude; but he made no move to go to her.

Presently the girl said nervously: "Has been shot...has been shot? You mean she shot herself?"

"I do not mean that," said Mr. Anders.

"But she must have shot herself. There was no one else in the room."

"Where were you?" he asked significantly.

The girl pointed. "Behind the sliding door."

"Mary!...In God's name...!" gasped Mr. Starr.

Anders shrugged. "Well, Mrs. Starr was shot from behind. That's proven. Moreover, we have the pistol from which the shot was fired."

The girl looked at Mr. Starr with a horrified question in her eyes. Clearly, she could not put it into words.

A new strength had come into him since she had entered the room. "Yes," he said quietly, "they accuse me."

"That's ridiculous," she said quickly. "You were outside the door before the shot was fired."

"How do you know if you were hidden behind the panelling?" Anders asked quickly.

"I could hear everything in the room. I heard the door slam before the shot was fired."

"How do you know he didn't push the door shut and then shoot her."

The girl faltered. "She...she had threatened to shoot him."

Mme. Storey said softly: "The bullet is over here beside the door."

Anders smiled at her in an annoyed way. "Er—of course, of course. Supposing the girl to be telling the truth about the slamming of the door. But I am far from satisfied as to that. Her own position is a highly suspicious one." He turned to the butler. "Pascoe, did you know that this young woman was in the house?"

"No, sir."

"How could she have got in without your knowing of it?"

"I can't say, sir."

"It was by no honourable means, we may be sure," said Mr. Anders, answering his question to suit himself. "...What were you doing locked up in the room overhead?" he suddenly barked at the girl.

"I thought she had shot at Norbert through the door," the girl answered simply. "I was afraid she would try to shoot me next. I couldn't get out of the garden door, because she had locked it and taken the key. So I ran into the room overhead. The key was in the door, and I turned it to protect myself."

"Why did you not throw open one of the windows above and call for help?"

"I suppose that is what I should have done," she murmured. "I can see it now. But I was half distracted. I dreaded being mixed up in an ugly scandal. I thought it would only make it harder for Mr. Starr. I hoped that I would be able to find my own way out later."

"Ha! that sounds at least as if we were approaching the truth," sneered Mr. Anders.

Norbert Starr glared at him.

"Perhaps Miss Lansdowne will tell us how she came to be in the house in the first place," suggested Mme. Storey mildly.

"Certainly," said the girl. "I received a note from Mrs. Starr yesterday asking me to come to see her at ten o'clock this morning. I was astonished to hear from her at all, and still more astonished that it was a kindly seeming letter. She said in it that if we could talk together woman to woman perhaps I would find out that she was not so black as she had been painted. She...she..." The poor girl faltered. "It is difficult to speak of these private matters," she whispered.

"You are not obliged to tell!" Mr. Starr burst out.

"Silence!" cried Mr. Anders.

"Silence, yourself!" retorted Mr. Starr. "This happens to be my house!"

When this little flurry blew over, the girl said firmly: "I will tell everything. Everything must come out now...Mrs. Starr intimated in her letter that she was prepared to set Mr. Starr free under certain conditions. She asked me to meet her alone in a certain spot in the castle grounds, giving as her reason that she was continually spied upon by servants and others. This seemed like a natural enough reason to me. She further asked me not to tell Mr. Starr that I was coming, or he would be sure to dissuade me..."

Norbert Starr's face was a study throughout this. "Oh, Mary!" he murmured.

"It was a very clever letter," the girl continued, "and I was completely taken in by it. I have every confidence in Mr. Starr, but even so, it seemed natural to me after the intolerable injuries he had received at her hands, that he might not be altogether fair to her. Nobody had ever acted hatefully or maliciously to me, consequently I believed that everybody must be good at heart.

"So I came. I followed the directions in the letter; entering the park by a little-used gate, and meeting Mrs. Starr in the spot she had described. In manner she was as kind and gentle as her letter had been, and I was glad I had come. She frankly acknowledged her former faults, but said she had experienced a change of heart. Her whole object now, she said, was to make up as far as she could for all the unhappiness she had caused Mr. Starr. She said that the reason she had sent for me was to make sure that I was the sort of woman who could really make him happy. If I were, she would put no further obstacles in his way, she said.

"In a little while she suggested that I come to the castle with her, where we could talk more at our ease. She brought me here by a way known to herself through the woods and the rose garden. We met nobody. We entered this tower by a door from the garden which Mrs. Starr locked behind her. We had not been in this room but a few moments when there was a knock at the door. Mrs. Starr asked me to wait on the stairway while she found out who it was. I did not like that sort of thing, still under the circumstances it did not seem unnatural that she should ask it. So I waited on the stairway, and she closed the panel behind me.

"It was a servant who had knocked. To my dismay I heard him announce Mr. Starr. When Mrs. Starr told the servant to bring Mr. Starr to this room, I realised that I had been tricked.

"I rattled the panel—I did not know how to open it from that side; I begged Mrs. Starr to let me out before he came, or at least to give me the key that I might get out through the garden. She only laughed at me. What I heard would open my eyes, she said through the door.

"At first I would not listen to what took place between them. I ran down to the foot of the steps. But when the woman began to scream at him, I became afraid on his account. I came back...then I heard all that was said..."

"Oh, Mary!" Mr. Starr murmured in horror.

"It didn't hurt me," she said stoutly. "I am not made of glass...I believe the poor woman was mad; mad with malice and hatred. Her object in getting me here was evidently to have me overhear her triumphing over Mr. Starr. But if that is so, it was not realised, for her foul abuse only reacted on herself. It never touched him.

"Her failure to move him aroused her in the end to a perfect frenzy. She screamed out that she'd kill him. I heard her fumble in the drawer of her desk for a gun. Then the door slammed and the shot rang out. I thought she had fired after him."

"Very interesting," said Mr. Anders with a disagreeable smile. "I am just going to ask you one little question." He paused for effect.

The girl looked at him as if puzzled to know what sort of disagreeable insect this could be. That glance of hers was a deadly affront to the little egoist.

"Are you prepared to produce the letter you say you received from Mrs. Starr?" he asked with an air.

"No, I burned it," she answered at once. "As she had in the letter asked me to do."

"How unfortunate!" said Mr. Anders sneering. "For I have established the fact that Mrs. Starr was shot by a woman or a short man."

This was pretty cool. I looked at Mme. Storey full of indignation, but she only smiled. When, oh, when, would she arise and crock this insect, I wondered.

"Miss Lansdowne is hardly five-foot-nine," Mme. Storey murmured.

"Oh, you cannot figure to a fraction of an inch," he retorted loftily. "A very pretty little plot is suggested here. It is too miraculous, the set of coincidences that brought them here at the same moment, the two people in the world most interested in putting this poor woman out of the way. Just what part each one played in the matter, I am not prepared to state without further investigation. In the meanwhile I shall of course order Miss Lansdowne's detention also."

"My detention?" gasped the girl, opening her eyes very wide.

"Detaining her!...Oh, you fool!" burst out Norbert Starr.

"Oh, doubtless, doubtless," said the little man, with a jocose smile at Kelliger, whose sympathy he could depend on; "but time will tell!"

VII

Mr. Anders had not yet published the sensational news broadcast, but he could not quite keep it to himself, either. He had telephoned to a certain Mr. Beckwith, who, it appeared, was chief of the selectmen or burgesses or whatever it was they called them, of Bellaire. In other words, the leading citizen of that suburb. He arrived at about the same time as the sergeant and constable.

Mr. Beckwith was a large, smooth, highly polished man. Besides running Bellaire in his off hours, he was a New York business man; vice-president of some Trust Company or another. In short, much more the experienced man of the world than little Anders, whose horizon was bounded by Patching Mountain and the Hohokus' meadows. When he was introduced to Mme. Storey, Beckwith's pale face shone with excited gratification.

"Mme. Rosika Storey?" he asked.

"The same," said my mistress.

"I am honoured...I am honoured," he said, bowing again and again. "Good Heavens, Anders!" turning to the other man, "how lucky we are to have the great Madame Storey to take an interest in this case."

Anders's jaw dropped as if its prop had been knocked from under. Behind the owlish glasses his eyelids made a thousand revolutions a minute. "Of course, of course!" he pattered. "Lucky indeed!" Meanwhile his bewildered face was mutely demanding: "But who the Hell is she?"

"Of course, in your business you know more about her work than I do," said Beckwith.

"Naturally."

"I shall never forget how she solved the Ashcomb Poor case. And the mysterious murder of that unfortunate girl up in Westchester County."

The prosecutor looked at my mistress as one might suppose the ugly step-sisters looked at Cinderella when the glass slipper went on. He gulped over the bitter pill. "Wonderful work," he said with a sickly smile. One could almost have felt sorry for him.

My mistress was too big a woman to rub it in. She smiled good-naturedly at little Anders. No one who did not know her as well as I did, could have perceived the humorous mockery in it.

"Mr. Anders," she said, drawing him a little apart, "before you have this man and woman taken away, indulge me just a little."

He was knocked quite flat. "Anything in my power," he murmured quite humbly.

"Let us suppose for the sake of argument that these two may be telling the truth. We have to admit that their stories dovetailed remarkably well."

"Oh, they fixed that all up beforehand," he said.

"Possibly. But just for the sake of argument...If they were telling the truth, there must have been a third person present in the room all the time."

"Obviously. But..."

"Well, before taking any action, let you and I pursue that possibility as far as it will take us."

"Just as you say, ma'am."

"If there was such a person in the room," Mme. Storey went on, "after firing the fatal shot, he or she ducked under the desk again as Mr. Starr ran back to see what had happened. Then when Mr. Starr ran out again to summon help, the murderer must have followed him out of the door, since Miss Lansdowne was hidden behind the door in the panelling. And since the murderer had been in this room even before Mrs. Starr and Miss Lansdowne talked here, he or she knew that Miss Lansdowne blocked the way out by the circular stair."

"Most ingenious," murmured Mr. Anders.

"But merely theorising, you would say," she put in good-naturedly. "Quite right...Well, give up ten minutes to accompany me on the trail of this supposed person, and if within that time we do not discover some facts to support the theory, I will retire."

"I am in your hands," he murmured submissively.

"Bella, you come with us," she said, "and you, please, Pascoe, to guide us through the house."

"May I come, too?" asked the fat Mr. Beckwith, eagerly.

"Ah, this is purely professional," said Mme. Storey with an apologetic smile. "We mustn't be too big a crowd."

He fell back disappointed. Anders, Pascoe and I followed Mme. Storey out of the room. Mr. Starr and Miss Lansdowne were left under guard of the various constables.

It was a queer sort of personally conducted tour that Mme. Storey took us. "The murderer would scarcely have followed Mr. Starr out into the main corridor," she said. "Let us see what alternatives there are. There are three other doors on this rear corridor. The first..."

"Mrs. Starr's bedroom," put in Pascoe.

"Ah, a noble room," said Mme. Storey as we entered, "with three tall windows facing the east such as a bedroom ought to have. The windows are open, but there are screens outside which have not been disturbed. The ground is about twenty feet below. There is but one other door in the room, and that leads to..."

"The bathroom," said Pascoe.

We all crossed this most luxurious cabinet which had nothing mediæval about it. It was lined throughout with green marble, and there was a vast bath let in flush with the floor, and quantities of brass-piping—or gold-plated, for aught I know.

"It has a door on the corridor we have just left," continued Mme. Storey, like one thinking aloud, "and a third door leading to..."

"Mrs. Starr's dressing-room," said Pascoe.

The dressing-room contained nothing but a great table standing in the window embrasure surmounted by an ingenious arrangement of mirrors which gave you a view of every angle at once without moving your head; also chests and chests of drawers. The walls all around were lined with wardrobes having glass doors.

"A businesslike place," remarked Mme. Storey dryly.

"Shall I search the wardrobes?" asked Mr. Anders.

"You may if you wish. But I think so cunning a criminal would scarcely..."

"The wardrobes are always locked," said Pascoe. "The keys are never out of the possession of Miss Woodley, Mrs. Starr's own maid."

So we went on.

There was no door from the dressing-room into the corridor, and we proceeded directly into the last room of the suite, which was known as the boudoir, according to Pascoe. In this, her own sitting-room, the mistress of the castle had given herself a free hand, and the resulting effect was one of the weirdest we had seen. Imagine a magnificent lofty chamber with a massive beamed ceiling, a superb fourteenth-century fire-place with projecting canopy, and along the south wall a whole row of tall pointed windows which looked out upon the central court of Bolingbroke, brilliant with clipped grass and parterres of many-coloured flowers. To complete it there should have been arras hanging before the stone walls; old faded rugs and a few pieces of heavy oak. But instead of that the stone walls were concealed behind hangings of pink taffeta—one wouldn't have thought there was so much pink taffeta in the world! The windows were curtained with it, the great corpulent chairs were upholstered in it, and there were besides a myriad lamp shades, cushions, screens. The floor was covered with a vast pink Aubusson carpet. Come to think of it, Mrs. Starr's instinct was not so far wrong after all. The boudoir must have made a fit setting for her.

Mme. Storey looked around her in an eloquent silence. Mr. Anders goggled at the pink taffeta.

Besides the door through which we had entered, there was a door from the corridor, and, diagonally across the room, a third door. Mme. Storey immediately proceeded to it, and opening it revealed a narrow landing and a stair descending. She looked at Pascoe inquiringly.

"For the servants," he explained. "So that Mrs. Starr could be waited on directly from below."

"This is the natural way out," said Mme. Storey. "Let us go down."

At the bottom of the stairs there was an ordinary door and window—once you left the show rooms of Bolingbroke the construction was frankly modern. Mme. Storey opened the door, and we looked into a sort of central servants' hall, from which corridors radiated in several directions, to storerooms, pantries, kitchens, no doubt. Half a dozen servants were within view. It appeared that work was still going on after a fashion, though the end of it all no longer existed.

"The murderer would not go this way if there was any other," said Mme. Storey. "Let us look at the window."

A sharp exclamation escaped from Pascoe. "Why, it's open!"

"Should it not be?" asked Mme. Storey.

"No, madam, by Mrs. Starr's express orders this window was always to be kept locked. It afforded a direct entrance to her rooms, you see."

"Ah," said Mme. Storey. "Let's look at it. The sill is three feet from the floor. An active woman would have no particular difficulty...Unfortunately there's no dust on the sill..."

"You think it was a woman, then?" said Mr. Anders.

"My opinion inclines that way."

"What further grounds have you...?"

"Well, it's the result of a rather lengthy course of reasoning," said Mme. Storey with a smile. "I'll tell you as we go along. Let's look out of the window first."

She suited the action to the word, and little Mr. Anders stuck his head out alongside her.

"Someone has gone out this way with fear at his heels," she said quietly. "Observe how the chrysanthemum plants are clumsily broken and crushed."

"I see! I see!" said Mr. Anders, like a child.

Mme. Storey withdrew her head. "Are you willing to come a little further with me?" she asked with a smile.

He spread out his hands in token of surrender.

"Then let Pascoe show us how we can reach this spot from the outside. He can then carry back word that we may be gone some time."

We left the butler at the service entrance to the castle. A moment later we were standing outside the open window above the chrysanthemum bed. Bending down, Mme. Storey carefully separated the broken plants, revealing a fairly perfect footprint in the loose mould.

Seeing it, the depressed Mr. Anders brightened up maliciously. "But that is a very large foot," he pointed out. "A man's, surely, and a big man's."

"So it would appear," said Mme. Storey cheerfully. "However, we shall see...The next question to decide is which way she—he went. Only two steps to the service driveway, you see. Only one way to turn in the drive, because it ends yonder at service door. Walking along the driveway this person would not be especially conspicuous, but I feel sure that with fear at his heels he—she would take to cover as quickly as possible. To run across the lawn would have been fatal; but observe, two hundred yards ahead of us, how a sort of promontory of the shrubbery almost touches the road. That would be the most likely place."

"It begins with the revolver we found under the desk," said Mme. Storey. "You observed, of course, that this revolver had a fresh, new look, though it is of a style which has long been discontinued. A close examination of the hammer, the chambers and the barrel suggested to me that it had never been shot off until today. The working parts have been kept free of rust by grease, but the shells are slightly rusted to the chambers. Now it is scarcely possible that a gun could pass from owner to owner and never be shot off, never even tested, so I assume that this pistol has been continuously in the possession of the person who first purchased it.

"It has been kept closely wrapped in a rag, as you could see from the particles of cotton still adhering to it. Now a revolver kept on hand for ordinary emergencies is never kept wrapped up that way—takes too long to get it out. I assume therefore—kept all these years without ever having been discharged—that it was purchased for a particular purpose, in short, the purpose for which it was used today."

"But why by a woman?"

"I'm coming to that now. The next question I had to answer was: How many years? That was easy. I had my secretary telephone to the manufacturers to find out about when the weapon bearing such a number had originally been sold. The answer was 1908. Fifteen years ago. The year of the marriage of Bessie Jewett and Norbert Starr. Now if anybody had a grudge against Bessie Jewett Starr that dated from her wedding, it would naturally be another woman, wouldn't it? a jealous woman? And anyway who but a woman would nourish a grudge for fifteen long years? Who but a foolish woman would undertake to use a revolver that had not been cleaned nor tested in so many years? It's a wonder she didn't blow her own hand to pieces."

"You bewilder me," murmured Mr. Anders.

"Theorising! Theorising!" said Mme. Storey cheerfully. "I never insist on my deductions until they are bolstered up by solid facts."

"But that was certainly a man's footprint," insisted Mr. Anders.

Mme. Storey merely smiled. The twinkle in her eye caused me to suspect that she was keeping her most important evidence to herself.

When we reached the point in the drive that was nearest the shrubbery, Mme. Storey bade us wait there so as not to mess up the earth with our tracks. Meanwhile, like a graceful hound she beat back and forth among the bushes. She presently gave tongue. As we joined her she pointed out a series of scarcely discernible depressions in the mould.

I would never have been able to follow them unaided, and I'm very sure Anders wouldn't—he was like a lap dog lost in the woods; but Mme. Storey with her marvellous eyesight led us on unhesitatingly. In the woods she was a dryad just as naturally as in town she was the fine lady. Through woods-mould, grass and last year's dead leaves she followed the trail. The shrubbery was backed by a thickly springing young woods of deciduous trees; oak, beech and ash; a natural wilderness with little open glades where rabbits scuttled and quail whirred up.

Presently Mme. Storey confessed that she had lost the track. However, she kept on, averring that it didn't matter, since she now had the woman's general direction. The woman must know what she was about. She would be heading for the shortest way out of the woods.

Mr. Anders hazarded the information that we could not be far now from the Greenwall road which bounded the rear of the Bolingbroke place.

Sure enough, we soon heard the sound of passing motors. A thickly planted border in the English style screened us from the road. Bidding us stand still again, Mme. Storey searched up and down until she found the place where the woman had forced a way through. Even I could see the marks of her passage, but Mme. Storey was not content; she was still searching for something. Presently she made a pounce under a laurel bush, and held up a pair of large, new men's rubbers.

"I was sure she'd cast these before venturing out on the high road," she said.

Mr. Anders gave up. He cringed before Mme. Storey now. He stuffed the rubbers, one in each pocket.

Forcing our way through the thicket, we were still cut off from the highway by a barbed-wire fence. Before attempting to pass it, Mme. Storey looked keenly along the wire.

"It is difficult for a woman to get through barbed wire without leaving a souvenir," she remarked.

From one of the barbs she picked a thread. "What do you make of it?" she asked Anders, handing it over.

"A black thread," he said, blinking owlishly.

"But what sort of thread?"

"A cotton thread."

She shook her head, and broke off a piece. "A strong fine woolen thread with a crinkle in it. Crêpe. Our friend hung a crêpe veil from her bonnet so that she could hide her face, if need be. It is of a piece with the rest of her actions."

We assisted each other through the fence by holding the wires apart. On the hard macadam road the tracks were swallowed up. We could not even tell which way they turned in the road.

"No matter," said Mme. Storey. "It ought not to be difficult to figure which direction she took." She pointed to the left. "This would take us back to Upper Bellaire, wouldn't it?"

"Yes, madam," said Anders. "It runs into the main road to Bolingbroke Castle about a quarter of a mile from here."

"Then she wouldn't have gone that way," said my mistress, turning in the other direction.

We proceeded along the country road three abreast. The passing motorists looked at us curiously. And in truth we were an oddly assorted trio: Anders in his little cutaway coat and patent leather oxfords; the tall, elegant Mme. Storey in a champagne-coloured frock and a little red hat, and red-haired me with my note-book.

"The three musketeers!" murmured Mme. Storey.

We passed a few sporadic commuters' bungalows, and Mme. Storey sent Mr. Anders in to each one to inquire if a woman wearing a crêpe veil had been seen passing about noon. It was rather a trial to the county prosecutor's dignity to apply at the doors. In each case the answer was in the negative, and he began to pluck up a little spirit again.

"The person we are following may have had a car waiting for her," he ventured. "If so, we are certainly wasting our time."

"It is possible," said Mme. Storey calmly. "Anything is possible. On the other hand, this crime bears all the ear-marks of the single-handed crime. A crime long brooded upon in solitude and secrecy. I am as sure as one may be, that she came alone and departed alone...One begins to be able to reconstruct her character. A strange mixture of naïveté and cunning. She took chances, you observe, that would have appalled a prudent person. That was how she was able to get away with it."

After having gone say three quarters of a mile, we came to a single-track railway. There was a small solitary station where the line crossed the highway. The sign upon it read: "Greenwall."

"The Longwood Lake road," said Mr. Anders.

"That station, I take it, was our friend's objective," said Mme. Storey. "She had evidently familiarised herself with the neighbourhood, and with the timetables, too, no doubt. Let us inquire." She looked at her watch. "It has taken us twenty-eight minutes to make it. She would do it quicker. It was eleven twenty-six when Mr. Starr called us up today. Let us assume that the shot was fired five minutes before that."

The station-agent was one of those typical, lean jacks-of-all-trades that one associates with country stations; one who is prepared to perform any office for a traveller from sending a telegram to trundling a trunk.

"What is the first train that stops here after eleven-forty A.M.?" asked Mme. Storey.

The man hesitated, all agog with inquisitiveness. He greatly desired to obtain information before giving away any.

"Anders, County Prosecutor," spoke up our escort brusquely. "Answer the question, please."

The agent quickly changed his attitude. "Eleven fifty-one, madam," he said.

"Bound in which direction?"

"To New York."

"Did a woman wearing a black veil get on here?"

"No, ma'am. Nobody got on here."

Anders rubbed his upper lip, and tried not to look too pleased.

Mme. Storey was undisturbed. She looked around, fixing the lay of the land in her mind. "The conductor of that train?" she asked, "when will he pass through again?"

"He comes out on the four-eighteen," was the reply. "Twenty minutes from now."

"We'll wait," said Mme. Storey.

The three of us sat down on a baggage truck. Mme. Storey lit a cigarette. Mr. Anders was comically divided in his mind between masculine admiration, and professional jealousy. They discussed the novels of Emile Gaboriau. It appeared that Mr. Anders took him quite seriously.

"A better story-teller than a detective, I should say," remarked Mme. Storey.

When the antique local train with its leaking engine drew in, a single passenger alighted and scurried away. The conductor was somewhat astonished to be accosted as he was about to wave his arm to proceed. Anders got off his formula:

"Anders, County Prosecutor."

"When you stopped here at eleven fifty-one did you pick up a woman passenger?" asked Mme. Storey.

"Why, yes, ma'am," was the unhesitating reply. "Big woman, all wrapped up in black like she'd been to a funeral."

Mr. Anders's face was a study. To do him credit, he never after that offered to set himself up against my mistress's opinion.

The station-agent was standing close, of course, with his ears stretched. "I never seen her," he put in.

"She paid her fare on the train," said the conductor.

"She would have waited behind the section hand's shanty across the track until the train pulled in," said Mme. Storey. "And got on from that side."

"Yes, ma'am," said the conductor. "Now you speak of it, she got on on the wrong side."

"Where did she go?"

"New York City, ma'am."

"You did not see her face, I suppose."

"No, ma'am, she kep' it covered."

"Can you add anything to your description?"

"Not much, ma'am. Large, stout woman dressed in plain black. Not young, I should say. But real spry; energetic in her movements; determined-like."

"A very good description. That's all; thank you."

The train went on.

Mr. Anders was left in some little excitement. "Now we have a definite clue!" he cried. "We know where we are. We have something positive to go on. I will follow to New York by the next train."

Mme. Storey shrugged. "Just as you like," she said dryly. "Won't you find it rather difficult to trace a woman in a crêpe veil through the streets of New York?...Besides, she'll take it off at the first opportunity."

His face fell absurdly. "What are you going to do?" he asked.

"I'm going back to Bolingbroke Castle," said Mme. Storey. "I must discover who the woman was before I can find her. I want to ask Norbert Starr a question or two."

Mr. Anders suddenly struck his fist into his palm. "Of course!" he cried. "This woman was a creature of Starr's! He hired a woman, thinking that the trail would be less likely to lead back to him through her. I see it all now!"

"I don't," said Mme. Storey with an enigmatic smile.

VIII

From the station we telephoned to Bolingbroke Castle to ask that a car be sent, and in ten minutes or so we were back there. Though we had been gone an hour, the persons in the round room seemed scarcely to have moved. The body had been taken away. No one else had been admitted to the room, but in the corridors of the castle I met many new faces. Goodness knows who they were or what right they had to be there. Not the least dreadful thing connected with having a tragedy in the house is that it robs you of your privacy.

In the round room everybody was furtively watching Mr. Starr and Miss Lansdowne, who supported the ordeal as best they could. They were sitting beside one of the windows with their backs partly turned towards the others. They occasionally exchanged a whispered word, and continually sought to keep up each other's courage with confident and smiling glances.

But oh! with what a poignant anxiety Norbert Starr's eyes flew to Mme. Storey's face when she entered.

"Be of good heart!" my mistress said instantly. "We have established the fact that there was a third person in this room."

A long breath of relief escaped Mr. Starr. His eyes turned to the girl. Her clear glance answered back: "I knew they would clear you!" But Mr. Anders frowned; on general principles he disapproved of having the spirits of the accused bolstered up.

With half a glance at Miss Lansdowne, Mme. Storey said to Anders, aside: "I think I may get more out of Mr. Starr, if I question him without anybody being present except yourself, of course, and my secretary."

Anders nodded. "Suppose I have him brought to you in the end room on the corridor, the boudoir. Kelliger can wait outside the door, in case we need him."

"Oh, I shouldn't say Mr. Starr was dangerous," Mme. Storey said with a smile. "...Let a few minutes elapse. I don't want him to attach too much importance to the matter." To me she murmured: "Bring the big scrap-book to the boudoir, Bella."

Mr. Anders followed us to the boudoir. He had become my mistress's little shadow. He looked to her for his impetus. In that giddy pink room, Mme. Storey sank into one of the corpulent arm-chairs, crossed her legs comfortably, lit a cigarette, and opened the big scrap-book on her knee. For a few moments she studied it in silence, holding her head on one side to keep the smoke out of her eyes. Mr. Anders, lost in another pink chair across the fireplace, tried to look as much at his ease as she did, and respectfully waited for the oracle to give some sign.

In due course Norbert Starr was escorted to the door of the room. He was allowed to enter alone. Mme. Storey closed the book, and glanced at me. I put it on a table.

"Sit down," said Mme. Storey with a friendly smile. "This is not going to be an inquisition. We want your help. I think I may say—may I not, Mr. Anders?—that you need no longer consider yourself under suspicion."

"Just as you say, Mme. Storey," Anders said very reluctantly.

Mr. Starr sat down rather gingerly in another of the pink chairs between Mme. Storey and Anders.

"Have a cigarette?" asked my mistress.

He took it thankfully, and, lighting up, puffed at the weed deeply. He needed it.

"I want to ask you a question or two in reference to your marriage," said Mme. Storey.

"Anything you like," he murmured.

"Where were you married?"

"In the Little Church Around the Corner."

"Can you name the principal persons present?"

"There was nobody present but our two witnesses and some newspaper reporters."

"Who were your witnesses?"

"Mrs. Jewett, and Miss Jewett's manager, a man called Fazenda."

"Rather a hasty marriage, eh?"

"Decidedly," he said bitterly. "We made up our minds one night after the theatre, and were married next morning."

"You suggested in my office the other day—if you will forgive me for reminding you of it, that you were rather a passive agent..."

"Well, my wife was many years older than I," he said with a shrug.

"Didn't you want to marry her?" Mme. Storey asked softly.

"I thought I did," he said with a painful smile. "I was dazzled by her prominence and notoriety. I thought, God help me! that it would make me famous!"

"Now for a delicate question," said Mme. Storey. "Were you interested in any other lady at the time?"

He started to answer thoughtlessly—then pulled himself up with a startled glance at Mme. Storey. "Why...why, no," he stammered.

Just a startled flicker of his eyes, but it meant everything. I realised that Mme. Storey had asked the significant question, and that we were on the brink of a disclosure. Ah! I knew her so well! That was the way she did it. Seemed at the point of falling asleep just when she touched off the powder magazine.

"Ah!" she said with a disappointed inflexion. "...Are you sure?" she persisted softly.

"For your own sake you'd better answer frankly!" barked Mr. Anders.

Mme. Storey affected to look at him in astonishment, and he subsided.

Mr. Starr's agitation greatly increased—but there was a difference now; he was not agitated on his own account. "Why...why, what do you mean? Why do you ask me such a question?"

Mme. Storey's candour is notorious. She always tells the truth when she is able. "We have reason to believe," said she, "that Mrs. Starr was shot by a woman who had borne her a grudge ever since her marriage to you. In other words, a jealous woman. I am asking you if you know of any woman who had reason to be jealous."

Mr. Starr's horrified glance seemed to be turned inward. Clearly he was pursuing some private train of reasoning that brought him to an impasse. "Impossible...impossible!" he whispered, and a fine sweat broke out on his forehead. Then in a louder voice, with an attempted laugh: "Of course there was no other woman!"

Seeing that Mme. Storey did not appear convinced, he added with a cunning assumption of bitterness: "No woman ever cared for me. My money outshone my personal qualities."

"No woman but one," said Mme. Storey softly.

Norbert Starr's glance seemed to be fixed in space as if she had conjured up some dreadful ghost out of the past. "No!...No! No!" he whispered.

There was a silence.

Anders, thinking that Mme. Storey was at a loss, rushed to her assistance. "You're not telling the truth!" he cried, stabbing the air with a prosecutor's forefinger.

This only angered Mr. Starr. "Keep a civil tongue in your head!" he retorted haughtily. "You've got nothing on me. You know damned well by this time that I didn't do it!"

"We don't know that you didn't hire somebody to do it!" cried Anders.

Mr. Starr laughed contemptuously. "You'll have a job to prove that, old man."

"Gentlemen! Gentlemen!" admonished Mme. Storey with a bored air. She rose languidly. To Starr she said: "Thank you very much; that is all I wanted to ask you."

Manifestly relieved, he left the room. As soon as the door closed after him, Anders cried, "He knows who killed Bessie Jewett Starr!"

Mme. Storey shook her head. "No. He only knows somebody who had a motive for doing it."

"Well, that doesn't advance us any."

"On the contrary," said Mme. Storey with a subtle smile, "his refusal to tell me, tells me."

"Who is it?" cried Anders.

Mme. Storey regarded the end of her cigarette. Whether she would have answered him or not, I don't know. Before she had time to do so, the door from the corridor was softly opened. Around the door sidled the gaunt, awkward figure of Tessie Jewett with her dim remote gaze and half smile. A premonition of the dreadful truth gripped my breast. It stopped my breathing.

"Excuse me," murmured Miss Jewett, without looking directly at any one of us, "it has just occurred to me you have been here since morning. You have missed your lunch. May I...?"

"No, thank you," said Mme. Storey gravely, yet kindly, too. "Pascoe gave us an excellent lunch. We need nothing more."

"Oh, excuse me for disturbing you," murmured Miss Jewett, immediately turning to creep out again.

"Miss Jewett, why did you shoot your sister?" asked Mme. Storey quietly.

The suddenness of it made me feel a little sick. It seemed like the very refinement of cruelty. But Mme. Storey knew with whom, with what she was dealing, and as it proved, she adopted precisely the right means.

The woman at the door did not start at all. With her hand on the knob she merely turned her head, and a dreadful sly smile overspread her face that instantly made her madness manifest. "She was too fat," she said with a chuckle. "I was tired looking at her."

Mr. Anders jumped up. His eyes seemed to bulge against his glasses. "You're mad!" he gasped.

"Well, I ain't as crazy as Bessie was," retorted Miss Jewett. "She was plumb crazy!"

"Come in," said Mme. Storey soothingly. "Tell us about it."

Miss Jewett obeyed unhesitatingly. As soon as she left the door, Mr. Anders made a hasty detour to reach it from the other side. He peeped out, and beckoned to somebody to stand near.

Meanwhile Miss Jewett seated herself on the edge of the same chair that Norbert Starr had occupied. The woman seemed to be completely metamorphosed. She sat up stiff and straight; her eyes sparkled behind her thick glasses and hard, bitter lines appeared around her mouth. All her movements were definite and purposeful; we saw before us the "spry" woman that the conductor had described. She had exactly the look of an honest village wife sitting down with her company manners for a good gossip with a neighbour. It was very dreadful to see.

"I been thinking about it a long time back," she began. "I always kept a pistol by me for the purpose...But mostly I'd forget. May didn't want to do it. May's a Christian soul. I have to bear with her."

This was incomprehensible to me, but Mme. Storey got it. "So there are two of you?" she murmured.

"Yes, that's it," said Miss Jewett, grateful to be understood. "There's May and there's me. And folks don't know the difference. May's a fool. Her spirit is broke. She's one of these bearers and forbearers...But me! I'm fed up! fed up! I never say nothing, I let May talk, but I think a lot!..."

A different delusion intervened here, and the sharp, firm voice faltered. "There's too much eaten and drunk around here," she muttered, "and not any honest work done. All sorts of goings-on. It's like Babylon. And a voice told me it was my job to clean it up..."

Her voice trailed off into an indistinguishable mumble, and her eyes bolted. Mme. Storey sought to recall her with a question.

"Why did you choose today?"

She instantly picked up the thread as if she had never dropped it. "I always meant to do it of a Thursday. That's the day I take Momma into town to the doctor's. I knew I could steal back. I had it all planned out...But one Thursday was just like another...so many Thursdays! I couldn't fix on any particular Thursday. May was always interfering. May was scared..."

"Why did you fix on today?"

"Yesterday Bessie told me that Norbert was coming today. Eleven o'clock in the morning. So I knew this was the appointed day."

"You told us that you didn't know Mr. Starr was coming today," put in Mr. Anders.

"That was May talking," she instantly retorted, with her sly smile.

"What has Norbert got to do with it?" asked Mme. Storey softly.

"Norbert's the cause of all the trouble," she answered darkly. "He made bad blood between Bessie and me. He's false-hearted. I was the instrument appointed to chasten him. A voice commanded me, saying...And he had in his right hand seven stars and out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword..." She became quite incoherent again.

"You took your mother to town," prompted Mme. Storey.

"Yes. I had to start real early so's to get back in time for Norbert. We drove to our house on Fifty-Fourth Street, which is all locked up and nobody there. We stop there every Thursday to make sure it hasn't been entered. But today I took Momma in with me. I told the chauffeur I had to pack trunks and he needn't wait. I told him when I was ready we'd drive to the doctor's in a taxi, and he was to come back to the house for us at one-thirty. So I got rid of him."

"And your mother?"

"Oh, I locked Momma in a small room upstairs. She bit and scratched and cursed when I put her in, but she don't mean nothing by it. There wasn't anything there she could hurt herself with, and I laid down a matteress so's she could lie down and take a sleep when she got tired...Then I dressed myself in a black dress I had ready, and stuffed it all out with things I picked up to change my shape. Because everybody out here knows me. And I had Momma's widow's bonnet with the crêpe veil to hide my face. I had everything ready to my hand. A long time ago I planned it...When I was all dressed I got a taxi and drove out to the hotel in Upper Bellaire. It's only ten minutes walk from the Castle. I had time and to spare..."

"How did you get into the castle?"

The sly smile returned. "Oh, there's plenty of ways, if you know them. I had planned it often. They never could catch me! I hid in the bushes and watched, and I saw Bessie come out of the rose garden and go into the woods. So I sneaked through the rose garden and got into the tower through her door, and went up to the round room. When I heard her close the garden door, I hid under the desk..."

"How did you know she would see Mr. Starr in the round room?"

"Because she could say anything she wanted in there, and nobody could hear...But I was there hidden under the desk so snug. I could hear everything. I squeezed against the back of the desk, and when she sat down I could have tickled her fat feet..."

"She was not alone."

"No. She brought another woman with her. They talked, and pretty soon I made out the other woman was Mary Lansdowne. It was like the Lord had delivered her into my hands. I was going to shoot her, too. I had six bullets in my pistol. But the voice commanded me to wait till Norbert came. I wanted him to see it..."

She came to a stop, and sat staring before her, rubbing the silken arms of the chair with a curious circular motion of her palms. Mme. Storey made no attempt to prompt her.

She resumed on a sharp staccato note with breathless pauses. "Bessie didn't want Norbert to see the girl...So she put her behind the panel before he came in...Norbert came in...His voice...his nice voice...Norbert says to me: 'Why don't you join in the fun?' And I says: 'Oh, I'm nobody when Bessie's around.' And he says: 'Well, I'm nobody, too. So we're a pair!' How I laughed!..."

It was evident that the poor soul had jumped far back in her mind to quite another scene. She presently recalled herself with a jerk.

"Norbert came into the round room. I could hear every word...He offered Bessie her own figure to let him marry Mary Lansdowne...Bessie began to scream at him...And then...And then..."

The bony breast began to heave tumultuously; the big blue eyes were utterly distraught. Mme. Storey made haste to carry her over the dangerous spot.

"Yes, we know what happened after that," she said quickly. "And you got out by the window at the foot of the service stairs. You were clever!"

"Yes," she said, relapsing into her old dull self. "May was askeared Norbert hollered so. May was askeared of Mary Lansdowne, too. She couldn't get out by the garden door because Mary was behind the panelling. But she thought of the window at the foot of the little stairs..."

"Then she made her way to the Greenwall station, and took a train to town," prompted Mme. Storey.

"Yes, the eleven-fifty-one," said Miss Jewett dully. "Tessie knew what time the train left. She had planned it all out...Tessie's a terrible woman. She's got a scorching fire burning inside her. But it never shows...I'm afraid of what she'll do...And when the chauffeur called at the house at one-thirty Momma and I were all ready to come back with him."

"Weren't you afraid your mother would tell?" asked Mme. Storey.

"She ain't got the sense," was the apathetic reply. "Momma's like a baby. Soon as a thing's over she forgets it...We're all crazy...It seems kinda hard..."

It was heartbreaking. Mme. Storey and I could not bear to look at each other. The wretched woman had sunk down in her chair, her mouth had fallen, her eyes were staring glassily. I suppose, to do him justice, that Mr. Anders was moved, too; but unfortunately he had not imagination enough to change his role. He must still be the public prosecutor.

"Are you capable of realising the sense of what you have told us?" he harshly demanded.

Mme. Storey sought to stop him with a little cry of warning, but it came too late. The sound of the harsh voice seemed to electrify the insane woman. She sprang to her feet; her great eyes blazed; her voice rose to a shriek.

"Yes, I know what I did! I shot Bessie! I shot her dead! I always had it in mind to do it! And I'll shoot you, too, if you bark at me...I'm glad I shot her! She stole Norbert from me. And every day for fifteen years she threw him in my face! I wish she had nine lives like a cat so's I could kill her nine times over!..."

It ended in mere insensate shrieking. Anders turned white as paper. Kelliger and a policeman ran in from the corridor.

"Take her! Take her!" gasped Anders. "She did it."

They seized the unfortunate woman by the elbows and led her struggling and shrieking from the room.

Mme. Storey whispered to me quickly: "There must be mental sanitariums out here. Find Pascoe. Have him telephone for experienced nurses. Let him send a car for them."

As I hurried along the corridor they were taking Miss Jewett into the round room. Every shriek of hers was echoed far off from the direction of the great hall. Ah! that doomed household! I ran into Pascoe, hurrying along the main corridor.

When I returned, Mme. Storey was alone in the pink boudoir. She sank into one of the great chairs, and pressed her knuckles to her temples.

"It was harrowing, wasn't it?" she murmured. "Ah! the poor, poor women! Happily they don't know their own situation; they still have their delusions."

Norbert Starr rushed into the room with Mary Lansdowne following more decorously behind him. The man was well-nigh hysterical in his joy. Snatching up Mme. Storey's hands, he poured out his gratitude. She turned it off in her own humorous, mocking style. Her manner towards Mr. Starr was a shade drier than in the beginning; still she was polite.

More polite than I could have been. In the light of the scene we had just witnessed, Norbert Starr appeared much less charming to me than he had. His "charm" had worked too much damage, it appeared. To give him his due, I don't believe there was a thought in his head at that moment save simple joy at being freed of a horrible accusation; nevertheless, the fact remained that by her insane act the unfortunate woman had ensured the happiness of the man who had wrecked her happiness. It gave a horrible irony to the situation.

There is no need of repeating all he said. Mme. Storey has heard it many times before. The girl was more restrained. She said a pretty thing, I remember.

"Whenever I have a happy day, my thoughts will fly to you!"

She was a lovely thing with her luminous, quiet eyes, and I was very thankful she had not overheard Miss Jewett's wild and pitiful confession. I prayed that she might never learn the purport of it.

Mr. Starr had a car waiting, and he besought Mme. Storey and I to accompany him back to the city. My mistress declined.

"I wish to make sure that the unhappy woman is well treated," she said. "You cannot always depend on the temper of a prosecutor who finds himself cheated of a culprit."

"That's good of you," said Mr. Starr, with perfectly genuine feeling. "I wish you'd act for me in the matter. Just as if Mrs. and Miss Jewett still had the closest claims on me, I mean. Whatever the expense may be..."

"You are generous," said Mme. Storey. There was no mistaking the dryness of her tone now.

But the two never noticed it. They went out with eyes only for each other.

I didn't say anything, but Mme. Storey could read my thought in my face, of course. She said:

"You are a little uncharitable, Bella."

"I am just thinking the same as you are," I retorted.

"Possibly," she said smiling. "Then I am uncharitable too...One must not blame a man—or a woman either—for an injury of that sort. It is just the fortune of love. In love the wounds are dealt out, regardless. When you receive one, the only thing to do is to bind it up yourself and hide it. There are no surgeons on that front...In this case it is not the man's fault that the sort of injury which is generally healed in a week festered for years. The barb was lodged in unwholesome flesh."

"You are right, of course," I said. "But it goes against the grain to see him rewarded!"

"Oh, destiny has no moral sense," said Mme. Storey.

"What a day!" I exclaimed, realising all at once that I was dog-weary..."What was it that first put you on the right track?"

"Mrs. Starr's scrap-book," said Mme. Storey, putting her hand on it. "All the notices of her theatrical appearances are here—and her various appearances in court later on. An actress always keeps one. When I turned to the accounts of her wedding among the ordinary clippings, my eye picked out these verses. They are clipped from Chatter, that infamous but highly amusing weekly. Read them."

A LIGHT COMEDY

(With apologies to R. B.)

I

An unknown youth scarce-bearded, he
Was the least-regarded swain
Among the many that bent a knee
At the court of the sisters twain.

II

Marvellous sisters of beauty rare,
And nothing to choose between;
But one had a meek and downcast air,
The other the glance of a queen.

III

To arrogance, sure, the homage was paid,
Men being what they are;
And the meek-browed sister served like a maid,
Who attends, but may not share.

IV

The youth unnoticed and the woman unsought
Drew together like magnet and steel;
And in that court of vanity wrought
The only thing that was real.

V

Then he, 'twas brought to the queenly one,
At whom her lip had curled,
Was in fact no other than Midas's son,
And heir to half a world.

VI

Whereat the corners of her lips did rise—
Poor fool! Need the rest be told?
He gave up the woman who smiled in his eyes,
For her who smiled at his gold.

VII

Well, anyhow, here the story stays,
So far at least as I understand;
And here Clyde Fitch, you writer of plays,
Is a subject made to your hand!

THE END

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