id it--two
detectives with a search warrant. I--I wouldn't dare tell you over the
telephone what one of them said when he found the whisky and rock candy
for my cough."

"Did they take anything?" I demanded, every nerve on edge.

"They took the cough medicine," she returned indignantly, "and they
said--"

"Confound the cough medicine!" I was frantic. "Did they take anything
else? Were they in my dressing-room?"

"Yes. I threatened to sue them, and I told them what you would do when
you came back. But they wouldn't listen. They took away that black
sealskin bag you brought home from Pittsburg with you!"

I knew then that my hours of freedom were numbered. To have found
Sullivan and then, in support of my case against him, to have produced
the bag, minus the bit of chain, had been my intention. But the police
had the bag, and, beyond knowing something of Sullivan's history, I was
practically no nearer his discovery than before. Hotchkiss hoped he had
his man in the house off Washington Circle, but on the very night he had
seen him Jennie claimed that Sullivan had tried to enter the Laurels.
Then--suppose we found Sullivan and proved the satchel and its contents
his? Since the police had the bit of chain it might mean involving
Alison in the story. I sat down and buried my face in my hands. There
was no escape. I figured it out despondingly.

Against me was the evidence of the survivors of the Ontario that I had
been accused of the murder at the time. There had been blood-stains on
my pillow and a hidden dagger. Into the bargain, in my possession had
been found a traveling-bag containing the dead man's pocket-book.

In my favor was McKnight's theory against Mrs. Conway. She had a motive
for wishing to secure the notes, she believed I was in lower ten, and
she had collapsed at the discovery of the crime in the morning.

Against both of these theories, I accuse a purely chimerical person
named Sullivan, who was not seen by any of the survivors--save one,
Alison, whom I could not bring into the case. I could find a motive for
his murdering his father-in-law, whom he hated, but again--I would have
to drag in the girl.

And not one of the theories explained the telegram and the broken
necklace.

Outside the office force was arriving. They were comfortably ignorant
of my presence, and over the transom floated scraps of dialogue and the
stenographer's gurgling laugh. McKnight had a relative, who was reading
law with