"Has he said anything to you since Monday night?"

"Naw, suh."

"Did you see anybody else that night--Monday night?"

"Naw, suh."

"Do you remember anything else about how the bearded man looked?"

"Naw, suh, 'cep' he look' jes' like dis Mistuh Morley; dat's all I know,
boss."

Braceway got to his feet.

"All right, Roddy," he said heartily; "you're a good boy. Here's your
dollar."

Roddy rolled his white eyeballs toward the ceiling and bent his black
face floorward.

"Gawd bless you, boss! You is one good----"

"And here's another dollar, if you can keep your mouth shut about this
until I tell you to open it. Can you do that?"

Roddy conveyed the assurance of his ability to remain dumb until a
considerable time after the sounding of Gabriel's trump.

"See that you do. If you don't, I might have to arrest you after all."

When the negro had gone, Braceway stood at the window and, with glance
turned toward the street, saw nothing of what was passing there. He was
reviewing the facts--or possible facts--that had just come to him.
Restlessness took hold of him. He fell to pacing the length of the room
with long, quick strides. It seemed that, in the labour of forcing his
brain to its highest activity, he called on every fibre and muscle of his
physique. His cheeks were flushed; his eyes, hard and brilliant, snapped.

He was thinking--thinking, going over every particle of the evidence he
had drawn from Roddy, trying to estimate its value when compared with
everything else he had learned about the case. His stride grew more
rapid; his breathing was faster.

The murder, the men and women connected with it, the stories they had
told, all these flashed on the screen of his mind and hung there until he
had judged them to their smallest detail.

What could Abrahamson have meant by indicating a belief that the man with
the gold tooth looked like George Withers?

Was the boy Roddy wide enough awake that night to have formed any real
opinion as to the resemblance of the bearded man and Henry Morley?

The trip to the post-office--did that explain the disappearance of the
stolen jewelry? Had Morley mailed it at once to himself, or somebody
else, in Washington?

Withers had returned to the Brevord early Monday night. That must have
been before half-past twelve. Although the night clerk and the bellboy
had been asleep at the time and had not seen him, there was no room for
doubt of his return as he had describ