"What is that?" he sharply asked. He seized the arm and smelled of the
spotted fabric. "It is blood! Let me see your knife."

Quite mechanically Gerald thrust one hand into his trousers pocket and
brought out the knife which he had taken back from Ravelli, whose blood
was on it yet.

The storm was overhead. A first peal of thunder broke loudly. It came at
the instant of the assemblage's tensest interest--at the instant when
Gerald Heath was aghast with the revelation of his awful jeopardy--at
the instant of his exposure as a murderer. It impressed them and him
with a shock of something supernatural. The reverberation rumbled into
silence, which was broken by O'Reagan:

"There'll be no need to catch Eph," he said, in a tone of professional
glee. "This man is the murderer."

Again thunder rolled and rumbled angrily above Overlook, and the party
stood aghast in the presence of the man dead and the man condemned.

"Bring him to the telegraph station," O'Reagan commanded.

Nobody disputed the detective's methods now--not even Gerald; and a
prisoner as completely as though manacled, although not touched by any
one, he went with the rest.

Mary Warriner had taken down the tarpaulin front of her shed when the
men approached. In the ordinary course of her early morning doings she
would wait an hour to dispatch and receive the first telegrams of the
day, and then go to breakfast alone at the table where the engineers and
overseers would by that time have had their meal. She was astonished to
see nearly the whole population of Overlook crowd around her quarters,
while a few entered. But she went quickly behind the desk, and took her
place on the stool. The soberness of the faces impressed her, but
nothing indicated that Gerald was in custody, and her quick thought was
that some disaster made it necessary to use the wire importantly.

"I wish to send a message," said O'Reagan, stepping forward.

The eyes of the girl rested on him inquiringly, and he palpably
flinched, but as obviously nerved himself to proceed, and when he spoke
again the Irish accent became more pronounced to hear, although not
sufficiently to be shown in the printed words: "I will dictate it
slowly, so that you can transmit it as I speak. Are you ready?"

Mary's fingers were on the key, and her bright, alert face was an answer
to the query.

"To Henry Deckerman, president," the detective slowly said, waiting for
the clicks of the instrument to put