ct them, various stubs of partially-consumed cigarettes, lay about
the tables and floor. Adjoining this was the chamber which had been
known as Mrs. Dawson's, and this, too, had been thoroughly explored.
'Louette, who had disappeared after Doyle's tragic death, was found not
far away, and the police thought it but fair that Mrs. Doyle should not
be deprived of the services of her maid. Then came other additions,
though confined in other sections of the city. Mr. Pepper wired that
the party known as Monsieur Philippes had been run to earth and would
reach town with him by train about the same time that another of the
force returned from Mobile by boat, bringing a young man known as Dawson
and wanted as a deserter, and a very sprightly young lady who appeared
to move in a higher sphere of life, but was unquestionably his wife, for
the officer could prove their marriage in South Carolina in the spring
of '65. As Mr. Pepper expressed it when he reported to Reynolds, "It's
almost a full hand, but, for a fact, it's only a bobtail flush. We need
that cabman to fill."

"How did you trace Philippes?" asked Reynolds.

"Him? Oh, he was too darned musical. It was--what do you call it?--Flure
de Tay that did for him. Why, he's the fellow that raised all the money
and most of the h--ll for this old man Lascelles. He'd been sharping him
for years."

"Well, when can we bring this thing to a head?" asked the aide-de-camp.

"_Poco tiempo!_ by Saturday, I reckon."

But it came sooner.

Waring was seated one lovely evening in a low reclining chair on Mrs.
Cram's broad gallery, sipping contentedly at the cup of fragrant tea she
had handed him. The band was playing, and a number of children were
chasing about in noisy glee. The men were at supper, the officers, as a
rule, at mess. For several minutes the semi-restored invalid had not
spoken a word. In one of his customary day-dreams he had been calmly
gazing at the shapely white hand of his hostess, "all queenly with its
weight of rings."

"Will you permit me to examine those rings a moment?" he said.

"Why, certainly. No, you sit still, Mr. Waring," she replied, promptly
rising, and, pulling them off her fingers, dropped them into his open
palm. With the same dreamy expression on his clear-cut, pallid face, he
turned them over and over, held them up to the light, finally selected
one exquisite gem, and then, half rising, held forth the others. As she
took them and still stood besid