lightly. "Have a nice time at the Bolts?"

"Rotten," answered Miss Ocky tersely. "My own fault--I've been low in
my mind all day." She pulled off her driving gloves and waved with
them toward the veranda. "Come and give me a cigarette."

"What has been worrying you?" he asked her quietly when they were
settled in the cozy corner. "Anything serious?"

"Janet has gone. I shall miss her--terribly--after all these years.
She insisted, though, and I had no right to refuse her."

"But she will miss you, too, surely."

"Possibly."

"She's going home to Scotland, I suppose?"

"N-no." Miss Ocky hesitated, then added calmly, "She is going to a
sister in New Orleans."

"Oh," said Creighton, and it seemed to him that some one else must have
uttered the word, so far away did it sound. "Very nice for her."

"Let's--forget her," suggested Miss Ocky.

There was no talk from balcony to balcony that night. Miss Ocky begged
off on the plea of fatigue, and it was fairly evident that the plea was
perfectly honest. She acted as if she were tired, she looked so, and
Creighton, grimly comparing the fiction of New Orleans with the fact of
Montreal, could no longer doubt that she had every reason to be tired,
mentally and physically.

He was none too fit himself when he came down to breakfast the next
morning after a miserable night's rest. He could scarcely eat
anything. He rose from the table finally and sped into the front hall
at the sound of a motorcycle, and when he accepted two wires from a
messenger and dismissed him, his powers of resistance were pitifully
inadequate to withstand the greatest shock he was ever to receive in
all his life.

The first was a night-letter from Martin, the finger-print expert.

"_Numerous prints on cover of took. Freshest superimposed on others
are one of thumb top cover four of finger tips on bottom, made by
number eight in collection you sent me. Characteristics distinctive.
No possibility of error. Martin._"

Number eight of the collection he had made! Made since the death of
Simon Varr, then, and by some one in the household! Here was a
tangible clue to the truth at last!

He took his memorandum book from his pocket and turned its pages with
fingers that trembled slightly until he found the list that he had
started with Betty Blake. Swiftly, his eyes went to number eight.

"No. 8. October Copley." That was the entry.

A full minute passed before he stooped and