ed until to-night, and I stipulated that should she have offers
she should neither accept nor reject a suitor. I also told her, though I
declined to fully explain how, that she would materially assist me in
winning my wager."

This explains what Dora meant when she asked Mr. Randolph if money would
count with him against her love. When she accepted the wager with Mr.
Mitchel she had been feeling resentfully towards Mr. Randolph, who, as
long as he suspected his friend of the graver crimes, hesitated to
become connected with him by marriage. This made him less attentive to
Dora, so that she had not thought of him as a suitor when making the
bet. When he declared himself she recognized her predicament and was
correspondingly troubled, yet determined to win, and so acted as
related.

By this time, though Mr. Mitchel had not mentioned the name of the
criminal, several present knew to whom he was alluding. Mr. Randolph
said impetuously:

"Then that explains----" here he stopped, confused.

"Yes," said Mr. Mitchel, smiling, "that explains everything that has
perplexed you. Be reconciled for the time you have been made to wait,
for you will now not only win the lady, but you will recover this check,
for I must pass it over to her as a forfeit. Gentlemen, shall we drink
to the health and success of Mr. Randolph?"

This was done in silence. The guests felt a constraint. They knew that
more was yet to come and anxiously waited for it.

Mr. Mitchel continued: "Gentlemen, that ends my story, except that I
engaged Mr. Barnes to take up the threads of evidence which I gave him,
and to disentangle them if he could. Shall we hear his report?"

CHAPTER XVIII.

MR. BARNES'S NARRATIVE.

"Gentlemen," began Mr. Barnes, rising, "I am only an ordinary man,
following a profession at which some are disposed to sneer, but which to
me seems but the plain duty of one who is endowed with the peculiar
qualities that are essential to the calling. Our host would make a
magnificent detective, but I suppose he feels that he has a higher duty
to perform. Begging you then to forgive my manner of addressing you,
being by no means a speaker, I will tell you the little that I have
done, prefacing my remarks by saying that without the valuable
assistance of Mr. Mitchel I should have been powerless.

"There was a curious button which I found in the room where the murder
was committed, and which matched a set owned by Mr. Mitchel so closely,