the best
medicine for him. And I think Webster would see that nobody but you
could do this--in the very nature of things. The absolute secrecy
required, the fact that you buy her silence, pay her to cease her
accusations against Berne--don't you see? He'd want you to do it."

That finished her resistance. She made him repeat all his directions,
precautions for secrecy.

"I wish I could tell you how important it is," he said. "And keep this
in mind always: I rely on your paying her the money without even a
suspicion of it getting abroad. If accidents happen and you're seen
entering the Walman, what more natural than that you want to ask this
woman the meaning of her vague threats against--against
Sloanehurst?--But of money, your real object, not a word! Nobody's to
have a hint of it."

"Oh, yes; I see the necessity of that." But she was distressed. "Suppose
she refuses?"

Her altered frame of mind, an eagerness now to succeed with the plan she
had at first refused, brought him again his thought of yesterday: "If
she were put to it--if she could save only one and had to choose between
father and fiance, her choice would be for the fiance."

He answered her question. "She won't refuse," he declared, with a
confidence she could not doubt. "If I thought she would, I'd almost be
willing to say we'd never find the man who killed her daughter."

"When I think of Russell's alibi----"

"Have we mentioned Russell?" he protested, laughing away her fears.
"Anyway, his old alibi's no good--if that's what's troubling you. Wait
and see!"

He was in high good humour.

In that same hour the woman for whom he had planned this trap was busy
with a scheme of her own. Her object was to form an alliance with
Sheriff Crown. That gentleman, to use his expressive phrase, had been
"putting her over the jumps" for the past forty minutes, bringing to the
work of cross-questioning her all the intelligence, craftiness and logic
at his command. The net result of his fusillade of interrogatories,
however, was exceedingly meagre.

As he sat, caressing his chin and thrusting forward his bristly
moustache, Mrs. Brace perceived in his eyes a confession of failure.
Although he was far from suspecting it, he presented to her keen
scrutiny an amusing figure. She observed that his shoulders drooped, and
that, as he slowly produced a handkerchief and mopped his forehead, his
movements were eloquent of gloom.

In fact, Mr. Crown felt himself at