"I want you to run out there for me now. The hotel will be closed at
this time of year, of course, but a letter which I will give you to
the proprietor, who lives close at hand, will enable you to look over
the register for an hour or two in private. Turn to the arrivals for
August of that year, and trace the names and home addresses on each
page; then bring it back to me."

"Is it something in connection with that forged letter to Mallowe?"
asked Ramon quickly.

"Perhaps," the detective admitted. He shrugged, then added leniently,
"I think, before proceeding any further with that branch of the
investigation, it would be well to know who obtained the notepaper
with the hotel letterhead, and if the paper itself was genuine. Bring
me back some of the hotel stationery, also, that I may compare it with
that used for the letter."

A discreet knock upon the door heralded the coming of an operative, in
response to Blaine's touch upon the bell.

"There has been a slight disturbance in the outer office, sir," he
announced. "A man, who appears to be demented, insists upon seeing
you. He isn't one of the ordinary cranks, or we would have dealt with
him ourselves. He says that if you will read this, you will be glad to
assent to an interview with him."

He presented a card, which Blaine read with every manifestation of
surprised interest.

"Tell him I will see him in five minutes," he said. When the operative
had withdrawn, the detective turned to Ramon.

"Who do you think is waiting outside? The man who threatened
Pennington Lawton's life ten years ago, the man whose name was
mentioned by the unknown visitor to the library on the night Lawton
met his death: Herbert Armstrong!"

"Good heavens!" Ramon exclaimed. "What brings him here now? I thought
he had disappeared utterly. Do you think it could have been he in the
library that night, come to take revenge for that fancied wrong, at
last?"

"That is what I'm going to find out," the detective responded, with a
touch of grimness in his tones.

"But you don't mean--it isn't possible that Mr. Lawton was murdered!
That he didn't die of heart-disease, after all!"

"I traced Armstrong to the town where he was living in obscurity, and
followed his movements." Blaine's reply seemed to be purposely
irrelevant. "I could not, however, find where he had been on the night
of Mr. Lawton's death. Now that he has come to me voluntarily, we
shall discover if the voice Miss Lawton ove