ation of his sudden death?"

"A detective must consider and analyze a case from every standpoint,
you know, Miss Lawton," he answered. "It did occur to me that perhaps
your father met with foul play, but I put the theory from me for lack
of evidence."

"Mr. Blaine, my father was murdered!"

"Murdered! How do you know? What have you discovered?"

"He was given poison! I have found the bottle which contained it,
hidden deep in the folds of his chair there. It was no morbid fancy of
mine after all; my instinct was right! No wonder that chair has
exerted such a horrible fascination for me ever since my poor father
died in it. See!"

With indescribable loathing, she extended her left hand, which until
now she had held clenched behind her. Upon the palm lay a tiny flat
vial, with a pale, amber-colored substance dried in the bottom of it.
Blaine took it and drew the cork. Before he had time to place it at
his nostrils, a faint but unmistakable odor of bitter almonds floated
out upon the air and pervaded the room.

"Prussic acid!" he exclaimed. "It has the same outward effect as an
attack of heart-disease would produce, to a superficial examination.
Miss Lawton, how did you discover this?"

"By the merest accident. I have a habit of creeping in here, when I am
more deeply despondent than usual, and sitting for a while in my
father's chair. It calms and comforts me, almost as if he were with me
once more. I was sitting there just before I telephoned you, thinking
over all that had occurred in these last weeks, when I broke down and
cried. I felt for my handkerchief, but could not find it, and thinking
that I might perhaps have dropped it in the chair, I ran my hand down
deep in the leather fold between the seat and the side and back. My
fingers encountered something flat and hard which had been jammed away
down inside, and I dug it out. It was this bottle! Mr. Blaine, does it
mean that my father was murdered by that man whose voice I heard--that
man who came to him in the night and threatened him?"

"I'm afraid it does, Miss Lawton." Henry Blaine said slowly. "When you
hear that voice again and recognize it, we shall be able to lay our
hands upon the murderer of your father."

CHAPTER XVII

THE RESCUE

Precisely at the hour of eight that night, a huge six-cylinder
limousine drew up at the gate of Number Twenty-six Maple Avenue.
Half-way down the block, well in the shadow of the trees which gave to
the aven