hen I saw you again, and I'm here to fulfil that
promise. The riddle of Sir Andrew's death is a riddle no longer. If you
will have patience for a short time I shall explain a few things to you,
and then----"

"You know who killed my husband, then? You know?--you know?" bleated out
Lady Paula, starting to her feet with white face and hands clasped
close against her breast. "You have found out the secret of his murder,
Mr. Deland?"

"Yes--and I know who his murderer was, too, Lady Paula," returned Cleek
sharply. "Sit down, Mr. Duggan, I beg of you. The door is guarded, as
you can see--both outside and in--and perhaps it might be as well if I
added caution to care and turned the key in the door--so." Speaking, he
crossed the room in rapid strides, locked the door, and dropped the key
into his pocket. "Prevention is better than cure, you know. Yes, Lady
Paula, I know who murdered Sir Andrew, and I know how it was done. A
dastardly deed at best--an abominable crime upon humanity in return for
a family wrong. The old question of a vendetta--though of so recent a
date as to be a mere matter of seventeen years back. You have been
married that long, have you not? You are surprised, I see. Well, I
confess it, so was I. And when you mix up such other unpleasant
ingredients as a woman's ill-timed ambition, a blackmailer, and the
green-eyed god jealousy, you find a very unpleasant mess of pottage
indeed."

He spoke in his own way, unravelling the riddle in that leisurely
fashion for which he was famous; but to those over-charged minds and
hearts that surrounded him he seemed much like a cat playing with a
mouse--and enjoying its fruitless efforts at escape.

"But the murderer--who?--who?" gave out Maud Duggan in a suddenly shrill
voice, as a little silence held for a moment in that still room. "Tell
us that, Mr. Deland, I implore you----"

"In good time, Miss Duggan. First of all, the ways and means. Look!--see
that spinning wheel. There stands your guilty party in that innocent
guise. The hand that guided that wheel killed Sir Andrew as surely as I
am standing here. And how? An air-pistol. And who owns an air-pistol in
this place but Mr. Ross Duggan?"

"It's a lie--a damned lie! And I'll have you to law for it, too!" Ross
Duggan started to his feet, face crimson, hands knotted, eyes flashing
at this plain implication of himself. "Damn you, whoever you are!--it's
a lie! I did not kill my father! I swear it upon the sacred boo