experience."

"It does not interest me," the other retorted.

Mr. Gryce turned to his father and brother.

"Does it interest _you_?" he asked.

The old gentleman, ordinarily so testy and so peremptory, silently
nodded his head, while Franklin cried:

"Speak up quick. You detectives hesitate so over the disagreeables. Was
she throttled or stabbed with a knife?"

"I have said the means were peculiar. She was stabbed, but not--with a
knife."

I know Mr. Gryce well enough now to be sure that he did not glance
towards Howard while saying this, and yet at the same time that he did
not miss the quiver of a muscle on his part or the motion of an eyelash.
But Howard's assumed _sang froid_ remained undisturbed and his
countenance imperturbable.

"The wound was so small," the detective went on, "that it is a miracle
it did not escape notice. It was made by the thrust of some very slender
instrument through----"

"The heart?" put in Franklin.

"Of course, of course," assented the detective; "what other spot is
vulnerable enough to cause death?"

"Is there any reason why we should not go?" demanded Howard, ignoring
the extreme interest manifested by the other two, with a determination
that showed great doggedness of character.

The detective ignored _him_.

"A quick stroke, a sure stroke, a fatal stroke. The girl never breathed
after."

"But what of those things under which she lay crushed?"

"Ah, in them lies the mystery! Her assailant must have been as subtle as
he was sure."

And still Howard showed no interest.

"I wish to telegraph to Haddam," he declared, as no one answered the
last remark. Haddam was the place where he and his wife had been
spending the summer.

"We have already telegraphed there," observed Mr. Gryce. "Your wife has
not yet returned."

"There are other places," defiantly insisted the other. "I can find her
if you give me the opportunity."

Mr. Gryce bowed.

"I am to give orders, then, for this body to be removed to the Morgue."

It was an unexpected suggestion, and for an instant Howard showed that
he had feelings with the best. But he quickly recovered himself, and
avoiding the anxious glances of his father and brother, answered with
offensive lightness:

"I have nothing to do with that. You must do as you think proper."

And Mr. Gryce felt that he had received a check, and did not know
whether to admire the young man for his nerve or to execrate him for his
brutality. That