k, but he dropped it now with a slight frown.

"I don't think I care to be interviewed," he remarked curtly. "I have
nothing to say for the benefit of the Post-Dispatch."

"You'd better," said Terry, imperturbably. "The Post-Dispatch prints the
truth, you know, and some of the other papers don't. The truth's always
the best in the end. I merely want to find out what information you can
give me in regard to the ghost."

"I will tell you nothing," Radnor growled. "I am not giving statements
to the press."

"Mr. Gaylord," said Terry, with an assumption of gentle patience, "if
you will excuse my referring to what I know must be a painful subject,
would you mind telling me if the suspicion has ever crossed your mind
that your brother Jefferson may have returned secretly, have abstracted
the bonds from the safe, and, two weeks later, quite accidentally, have
met Colonel Gaylord alone in the cave--"

Radnor turned upon him in a sudden fury; I thought for a moment he was
going to strike him and I sprang forward and caught his arm.

"The Gaylords may be a bad lot but they are not liars and they are not
cowards. They do not run away; they stand by the consequences of their
acts."

Terry bowed gravely.

"Just one more question, and I am through. What happened to you that day
in the cave?"

"It's none of your damned business!"

I glanced apprehensively at Terry, uncertain as to how he would take
this; but he did not appear to resent it. He looked Radnor over with an
air of interested approval and his smile slowly broadened.

"I'm glad to see you're game," he remarked.

"I tell you I don't know who killed my father any more than you do,"
Radnor cried. "You needn't come here asking me questions. Go and find
the murderer if you can, and if you can't, hang me and be done with it."

"I don't know that we need take up any more of Mr. Gaylord's time," said
Terry to me. "I've found out about all I wished to know. We'll drop in
again," he added reassuringly to Radnor. "Good afternoon."

As we went out of the door he turned back a moment and added with a
slightly sharp undertone in his voice:

"And the next time I come, Gaylord, you'll shake hands!" Fumbling in his
pocket he drew out my telegram from the police commissioner, and tossed
it onto the cot. "In the meantime there's something for you to think
about. Good by."

"Do you mean," I asked as we climbed back into the carriage, "that
Radnor did believe Jeff guilty?"