igh
upon the wall, indeed, almost under the ceiling. It must, therefore,
drape the opening into still another communicating room. And such he
found to be the case. Pushing this curtain aside, he entered a narrow
closet containing a bed, a dresser, and a small table. The bed was the
narrow cot of a bachelor, and the dresser that of a man of luxurious
tastes and the utmost nicety of habit. Both the bed and dresser were in
perfect order, save for a silver-backed comb, which had been taken from
the latter, and which he presently found lying on the floor at the other
end of the room. This and the presence of a pearl-handled parasol on a
small stand near the door proclaimed that a woman had been there within
a short space of time. The identity of this woman was soon established
in his eyes by a small but unmistakable token connecting her with the
one who had been the means of sending in the alarm to the police. The
token of which I speak was a little black spangle, called by milliners
and mantua-makers a sequin, which lay on the threshold separating this
room from the study; and as Mr. Gryce, attracted by its sparkle, stooped
to examine it, his eye caught sight of a similar one on the floor
beyond, and of still another a few steps farther on. The last one lay
close to the large centre-table before which he had just been standing.

The dainty trail formed by these bright sparkling drops seemed to affect
him oddly. He knew, minute observer that he was, that in the manufacture
of this garniture the spangles are strung on a thread which, if once
broken, allows them to drop away one by one, till you can almost follow
a woman so arrayed by the sequins that fall from her. Perhaps it was the
delicate nature of the clew thus offered that pleased him, perhaps it
was a recognition of the irony of fate in thus making a trap for unwary
mortals out of their vanities. Whatever it was, the smile with which he
turned his eye upon the table toward which he had thus been led was very
eloquent. But before examining this article of furniture more closely,
he attempted to find out where the thread had become loosened which had
let the spangles fall. Had it caught on any projection in doorway or
furniture? He saw none. All the chairs were cushioned and--But wait!
there was the cross! That had a fretwork of gold at its base. Might not
this filagree have caught in her dress as she was tearing down the cross
from the wall and so have started the thread