ells me she said Mrs. Hunt had had a terrible
accident and was dyin'."

"You're certain she said 'accident'?"

"The girl who was at the switchboard--name of Joyce--she's sure of it."

I smiled, grimly enough. "Then that is exactly what occurred,
sergeant--a terrible accident; hideous. Your question is answered.
Nobody killed Mrs. Hunt--unless you are so thoughtless or blasphemous as
to call it an act of God!"

"Oh, come on now!" he objected, shaking his head, but not, I felt, with
entire conviction. "No," he continued stubbornly, "I been turnin' that
over too. But there's no way an accident like that could 'a' happened.
It's not possible!"

"Fortunately," I insisted, "nothing else is possible! Are you asking me
to believe that a young, sensitive girl, with an extraordinary
imaginative sympathy for others--a girl of brains and character, as all
her friends have reason to know--asking me to believe that she walked
coolly into my wife's room this evening, rushed savagely upon her,
wrested a paper knife from her hand, and then found the sheer brute
strength of will and arm to thrust it through her eye deep into her
brain? Are you further asking me to believe that having done this
frightful thing she kept her wits about her, telephoned at once for a
doctor--being careful to call her crime an accident--and so passed at
once into a trance of some kind and walked from the room with the bloody
knife in her hand? What possible motive could be strong enough to drive
such a girl to such a deed?"

"Jealousy," said Sergeant Conlon. "She wanted _you_--and your wife stood
in her way. That's what I get from Mrs. Arthur."

"I see. But the three or four persons who know Miss Blake and me best
will tell you how absurd that is, and you'll find their reasons for
thinking so are very convincing. Is Mr. Phar still about?"

"He is. I've detained him."

"What does he think of Mrs. Arthur's nonsensical theory?"

"He's got a theory of his own," said Conlon; "and it happens to be the
same as mine."

"Well?"

"Mr. Phar says Miss Blake's own father went mad--all of a sudden; cut
some fancy woman's throat, and his own after! He thinks history's
repeated itself, that's all. So do I. Only a crazy woman could 'a' done
this--just this way. A strong man in his senses couldn't 'a' drove that
paper-knife home like that! But when a person goes mad, sir, all rules
are off. I seen too many cases. Things happen you can't account for.
Take the mat