other determination to win one final
friendly, commendatory look--perhaps a word or two, or even a warm
hand-clasp--from Miss Genevieve Cooper.

How was I to do that? By fastening an odious crime upon her cousin's
lover? I shrank from such an alternative. Heaven grant that so far I
had not reasoned falsely.

It may seem a poor business thus to mix sentiment with one's humdrum
daily affairs; but--well, and so it is. After mature reflection, I can
think of but one extenuating plea: I was only twenty-six at the time.

Up to the present it had been difficult to ascribe to each circumstance
its own proper value; but now they were beginning to shape themselves
into some semblance of order, and for the first time a fairly complete
concept of the tragedy's enactment irresistibly presented itself to me.

The antecedent circumstances leading up to the crime, however, were
largely conjectural, although they were pretty strongly suggested by
the details of the struggle itself. I was thus enabled to supply the
missing portions with more or less plausibility. Here, then, is the
way I reconstructed the night's occurrences in this house--the fatal
sequence of events which began when Felix Page bade Maillot good-night,
culminated in the older man's death, and ended with the flight of the
murderer. You will perceive that the four "Chinese" had no place in
it; I could find none for them.

After Mr. Page and Maillot separated, for some reason the former had
not retired. I took it as being more than likely that he had returned
to the library, where presently he fell into a doze before the dying
fire. But, no, first of all he went to the safe to dispose of the box
containing the ruby; after that he returned to the library. While he
nodded over the fire the thief stole to the safe, opened it _with the
combination_, and took not only the ruby, but everything else the
strong-box contained.

But cautious as the thief is, some disturbing noise penetrates to the
sleeper's consciousness; in fancy we may see the old man--fox, pirate
of the pit, as he had been called--starting broad awake, fearless,
every faculty alert and strained to catch the betraying sounds.

In a moment he bestirs himself to ascertain what is afoot in his house
at so unseemly an hour. Noiselessly he enters the hall from the
library, in time to behold the marauder--by the latter's own candle
flame, I was positive--ascending the front stairs.

And here the trag