stepping back he lifted
down a somewhat shabby gray raincoat and flung it toward her. She picked
it up, and slipped it on. It was large, but still she could wear it, and
while she stood in the middle of the room hesitating, she slipped her
hands into the capacious pockets.

"Well?" demanded Frank impatiently.

The girl did not answer, but stood staring ahead of her. Slowly she
raised her left hand, pressing the thumb between her eyebrows, and
taking the right hand from the raincoat pocket, she stretched it out,
the fingers groping uncertainly. She turned so white that the young man
in the doorway stared, frightened, yet under a spell that forbade his
moving. Suddenly the trembling, questioning hand grew rigid, and
without an instant's hesitation she turned and walked to the divan, and
laid her hand upon the bundle.

"It is here, Frank," she said quietly. "Turn up the light, and cut this
cord."

He did so, and as the paper fell away from the dictionary, she opened
the heavy volume and their eyes fell upon a large manila envelope
plainly addressed to "Miss Silvia Holland, City Investment Building, New
York." The girl laid her hand upon it.

"Wait a minute; let me tell you what happened," she said. "When the
postman came she gave him the letter for Alice, and he gave her the box.
She didn't give him this letter because she hadn't stamps enough--see,
it has but one--or perhaps she meant to use it as a threat; there was
somebody who had a motive for killing her. The woman across the hall
called her and she slipped this envelope into the dictionary and went
out, leaving her door open; old Mr. Dillon came up and got the book;
he's just been telling me about it. They never opened it, and after her
body was found--Mrs. Bell's, I mean--his wife was so upset that she went
to her daughter, and they forgot it entirely until to-night. When Mrs.
Bell came back, she opened the package the postman had given her, and
she never had a chance to miss anything after that."

She lifted her hand, and Frank picked up the envelope and looked at it
and then at her.

"I believe you have solved the mystery," he said, "and that all you have
not learned will be revealed when Silvia opens this envelope. Oh, this
is wonderful, Carroll! I'll get a taxi, and we'll go to her at once."

"I wouldn't," said the girl. "It'll be nearly midnight by the time we
can get there, and if it is bad news--which it isn't--there's nothing
she can do to-night, a