little hesitancies
usual in situations of this nature.

"And your means, resources. Any, Mrs. Brace?"

"None--except my daughter's."

He was unaccountably restless. Putting the knife into his pocket, he
stood up, went to the window. His guess had been correct. The courtyard
below was as he had pictured it. He stood there at least a full minute.

Turning suddenly in the hope of catching some new expression on her
face, he found her gazing steadily, as if in revery, at the opposite
wall.

"One thing more, Mrs. Brace: did you know your daughter intended to go
to Sloanehurst last night?"

"No."

"Were you uneasy when she failed to come in--last night?"

"Yes; but what could I do?"

"Had she written to Mr. Webster recently?"

"Yes; I think so."

"You think so?"

"Yes; she went out to mail a letter night before last. I recall that
she said it was important, had to be in the box for the midnight
collection, to reach its destination yesterday afternoon--late. I'm sure
it was to Webster."

"Did you see the address on it?"

"I didn't try to."

He stepped from the window, to throw the full glare of the morning sky
on her face, which was upturned, toward him.

"Was it in a grey envelope?"

"Yes; an oblong, grey envelope," she said, the impassive, unwrinkled
face unmoved to either curiosity or reticence.

With surprising swiftness he took a triangular piece of paper from his
breast pocket and held it before her.

"Might that be the flap of that grey envelope?"

She inspected it, while he kept hold of it.

"Very possibly."

Without leaving her chair, she turned and put back the lid of a rickety
little desk in the corner immediately behind her. There, she showed him,
was a bundle of grey envelopes, the corresponding paper beside it. He
compared the envelope flaps with the one he had brought. They were
identical.

Here was support of her assertion that Berne Webster had been pursued by
her daughter as late as yesterday afternoon--and, therefore, might have
been provoked into desperate action. He had found that scrap of grey
paper at Sloanehurst, in Webster's room.

VI

ACTION BY THE SHERIFF

Mrs. Brace did not ask Hastings where he had got the fragment of grey
envelope. She made no comment whatever.

He reversed the flap in his hand and showed her the inner side on which
were, at first sight, meaningless lines and little smears. He explained
that the letter must have been put into the enve