mie." Helen straightened up, one hand
pressed to her heart. "It was a lethal dose of amyl nitrite."

"Amyl nitrite," she repeated. "Yes, I have heard that it is given
for heart trouble. How"--she looked at him queerly. "How is it
administered?"

"By crushing a capsule in a handkerchief and inhaling its fumes "--he
was watching her closely. "The handkerchief Jimmie was seen to use just
before he died was found to contain two or more broken capsules."

Helen sat immovable for over a minute, then she bowed her head and burst
into dry tearless sobs which wracked her body. Kent laid a tender hand
on her shoulder, then concluding it was better for her to have her cry
out, he wandered aimlessly about the office waiting for her to regain
her composure.

He stopped before one of the windows facing south and stared moodily
at the Belasco Theater. That playhouse had surely never staged a more
complicated mystery than the one he had set himself to unravel. What
consolation could he offer Helen? If he encouraged her belief in his
theory that Jimmie committed suicide he would have to establish a motive
for suicide, and that motive might prove to be the theft of Colonel
McIntyre's valuable securities. Threatened with exposure as a thief and
forger, Jimmie had committed suicide, so would run the verdict; the
fact of his suicide was proof of his guilt of the crime Colonel McIntyre
virtually charged him with, and vice versa.

What had been discovered to point to murder? The finding of a
handkerchief, saturated with amyl nitrite, which had not belonged to
the dead man. Proof--bah! it was ridiculous! What more likely than that
Jimmie, while in the McIntyre house before his arrest as a burglar, had
picked up one of Barbara's handkerchiefs, stuffed it inside his pocket,
and when threatened with exposure on being held for the grand jury,
had, in desperation, crushed the amyl nitrite capsules in Barbara's
handkerchief and killed himself.

Kent drew a long, long sigh. His faith in Jimmie's honesty was shaken
at last by the accumulative evidence, and he was convinced that he had
found the solution to the problem, but how impart it to the weeping
girl? To prove her lover a thief, forger, and suicide was indeed a task
he shrank from.

A ring at the telephone caused Kent to move hastily to the instrument;
when he hung up the receiver Helen was adjusting her veil before a
mirror over the mantel.

"Colonel McIntyre is in the next room," he