outsiders."

"Where did you get that information?" demanded Patsy.

"From one of Anna Doyle Oppenheim's detective stories," answered Beth,
seriously. "I've been reading up on such things, lately."

"Detective stories," said Louise, reflectively, "are only useful in
teaching us to observe the evidences of crime. This case, for example,
is so intricate and unusual that only by careful thought, and following
each thread of evidence to its end, can we hope to bring the criminal
to justice."

"That seems to me conceited," observed Miss Doyle, composedly.
"Detective stories don't have to stick to facts; or, rather, they can
make the facts to be whatever they please. So I don't consider them as
useful as they are ornamental. And this isn't a novel, girls; it's
mostly suspicion and slander."

"You don't seem able to be in earnest about anything," objected Beth,
turning a little red.

"But I try to be." said Patricia.

"We are straying from the subject now under discussion," remarked
Louise. "I must say that I feel greatly encouraged by the sudden
appearance of the Wegg boy. He may know something of his father's former
associates that will enable us to determine the object of the murder and
who accomplished it."

"Captain Wegg was killed over three years ago," suggested Miss Doyle,
recovering easily from her rebuff. "By this time the murderer may have
died or moved to Madagascar."

"He is probably living within our reach, never suspecting that justice
is about to overtake him," asserted Louise. "We must certainly go to
call upon this Wegg boy, and draw from him such information as we can. I
am almost certain that the end is in sight."

"We haven't any positive proof at all, yet," observed Patsy, musingly.

"We have plenty of circumstantial evidence," returned Beth. "There is
only one way to explain the facts we have already learned, and the
theory we have built up will be a hard one to overthrow. The flight of
Captain Wegg to this place, his unhappy wife, the great trouble that old
Nora has hinted at, the--"

"The great trouble ought to come first," declared Louise. "It is the
foundation upon which rest all the mysterious occurrences following, and
once we have learned what the great trouble was, the rest will be
plain sailing."

"I agree with you," said Beth; "and perhaps Joseph Wegg will be able to
tell us what the trouble was that ruined the lives of his parents, as
well as of Old Hucks and his wife, and cau