d thought: "She didn't reason this out. Russell saw the murder--the
coward--and he's told her. He ran away from----"

Another suspicion attacked him: "But that was Jarvis' night off. Has she
seen Jarvis?"

Impelled to put this fresh bewilderment into words, he was stayed by the
restless, brilliant eyes with which she seemed to penetrate his
lumbering mind. He was afraid of losing her cooperation. She was too
valuable an ally to affront. He kept quiet.

She brought him back to her purpose.

"Then, you agree with me? You think Webster's guilty?"

"Think!" He almost shouted his contempt of the inadequate word. "Think!
I know! Guilty? The man's black with guilt."

"I'm sure of it," she said, curiously skilful in surrendering to him all
credit for that vital discovery. "What are you going to do--now that you
know?"

"Make him talk, turn him inside out! Playing sick, is he! I'm going back
to Sloanehurst this evening. I'm going to start something. You can take
this from me: Webster'll loosen that tongue of his before another sun
rises!"

But that was not her design.

"You can't do it," she objected, her voice heavy with disappointment.
"Dr. Garnet, your own coroner, says questioning will kill him. Dr.
Garnet's as thoroughly fooled as Hastings, and," she prodded him with
suddenly sharp tone, "you."

"That's right." He was crestfallen, plucking at his chin. "That's hard
to get around. But I've got to get around it! I've got to show results,
Mrs. Brace. People, some of the papers even, are already hinting that
I'm too easy on a rich man and his friend."

"Yes," she said, evenly. "And you told--I understood you'd act, on our
theory."

"I've got to! I've got to act!"

His confusion was manifest. He did not know what to do, and he was
silent, hoping for a suggestion from her. She let him wait. The pause
added to his embarrassment.

"What would--that is," he forced himself to the appeal, "I was
wondering--anything occur to you? See any way out of it?"

"Of course, I know nothing about such procedure," she replied to that,
slowly, as if she groped for a new idea. "But, if you got the proof from
somewhere else, enough to warrant the arrest of Webster----" Her smile
deprecated her probable ineptness. "If Arthur Sloane----"

He fairly fell upon the idea.

"Right!" he said, clapping his hands together. "Sloane's no dying man,
is he? And he knows the whole story. Right you are, Mrs. Brace! He can
shake and tremble an