a Law
on the verge of leaving the stage to marry, a fatal accident
intervening. Did Max by any chance mention the nickname New York has
bestowed on Sara Law?"

"Nickname? No!"

"They call her 'The Destroying Angel.'"

"What damnable rot!"

"Yes; but what damnable coincidence. Three men loved her--and one by one
they died. And now the fourth. Do you wonder...?"

"Oh, but--'The Destroying Angel'--!" Whitaker cried indignantly. "How
can they blame her?"

"It isn't blame--it's superstition. Listen...."

Ember bent forward, holding Whitaker's gaze with intent, grave eyes.
"The first time," he said in a rapid undertone, "was a year or so after
her triumph as _Joan Thursday_. There were then two men openly
infatuated with her, a boy named Custer, and a man I believe you
knew--William Hamilton."

"I knew them both."

"Custer was making the pace; the announcement of his engagement to Sara
Law was confidently anticipated. He died suddenly; the coroner's jury
decided that he had misjudged the intentions of a loaded revolver.
People whispered of suicide, but it didn't look quite like that to me.
However ... Hamilton stepped into his place. Presently we heard that
Sara Law was to marry him and leave the stage. Hamilton had to go abroad
on business; on the return trip--the wedding was set for the day after
he landed here--he disappeared, no one knew how. Presumably he fell
overboard by accident one night; sane men with everything in the world
to live for do such things, you know--according to the newspapers."

"I understand you. Please go on."

"Approximately eighteen months later a man named Thurston--Mitchell
Thurston--was considered a dangerous aspirant for the hand of Sara Law.
He was exceedingly well fixed in a money way--a sort of dilettantish
architect, with offices in the Metropolitan Tower. One day at high noon
he left his desk to go to lunch at Martin's; crossing Madison Square, he
suddenly fell dead, with a bullet in his brain. It was a rifle bullet,
but though the square was crowded, no one had heard the report of the
shot, and no one was seen carrying a rifle. The conclusion was that he
had been shot down by somebody using a gun with a Maxim silencer, from a
window on the south side of the square. There were no clues."

"And now Drummond!" Whitaker exclaimed in horror. "Poor fellow! Poor
woman!"

A slightly sardonic expression modified the lines of Ember's mouth. "So
far as Mrs. Whitaker is concerned,"