nca would be coming up from Washington this week
and asking her to waive formality and come to the party."

"You say my cousin sent such a wire?"

"I read the telegram. Likewise I read Madame Ybanca's reply, filed at
half after six o'clock yesterday evening, accepting the invitation."

"But surely"--and now there was mounting incredulity and indignation in
Miss Smith's tone--"but surely no one dares to assert that my cousin is
conniving at anything improper?"

"Certainly not! If I thought she was doing anything wrong I would hardly
be asking you to help trap her, would I? Didn't I tell you that we might
even have to enlist your cousin's co-operation? But I imagine, when you
make inquiry, as of course you will do at once, you'll find that since
you saw your cousin she has seen Goldsborough, or Geltmann--to give him
his real name--and that he asked her to send the wire to Madame Ybanca."

"That being assumed as correct, the weight of the proof would seem to
press upon the madame rather than upon Miss Ballister, wouldn't it?"

"Frankly I don't know. At times to-day, coming up here on the train, I
have thought she must be the guilty one, and at times I have felt sure
that she was not. But this much I do know: One of those two ladies is
absolutely innocent of any wrongdoing, and the other one--pardon my
language--is as guilty as hell. But perhaps it is only fair to both that
you should suspend judgment altogether until I have finished telling you
the whole business, as far as I know it.

"Let us go back a bit. Half an hour after I had heard Westerfeltner's
confession and fifteen minutes after I had seen the druggist and his
clerk, the entire machinery of our branch of the service had been set in
motion to find out what women in Washington were friends of Geltmann.
For Geltmann spent most of last fall in Washington. Now while in
Washington he was noticeably attentive to just two women--Miss Ballister
and Madame Ybanca. Now mark a lengthening of the parallel: Both of them
are small women; both of them are slender; both are young, and both of
course have refined voices. Neither speaks with any special accent, for
the madame, though married to a Latin, is an American woman. She has
black hair, while Miss Ballister's hair is a golden red-brown. So far,
you see, the vague description furnished by the three men who spoke to
the mythical Mrs. Williams might apply to either."

"Then which of the two is supposed to have been mo