on!" cried Speed; "who is she?"

"She is, as you may remember, the girl who carried the coffee from Mrs.
Brenton to monsieur."

"And are you sure she is the criminal?"

The great detective did not answer; he merely gave an expressive little
French gesture, as though the question was not worth commenting upon.

"Why, what was her motive?" asked Speed.

For the first time in their acquaintance a shade of perplexity seemed to
come over the enthusiastic face of the volatile Frenchman.

"You are what you call smart, you Chicago people," he said, "and you
have in a moment struck the only point on which we are at a loss."

"My dear sir," returned Speed, "that is _the_ point in the case. Motive
is the first thing to look for, it seems to me. You said as much
yourself. If you haven't succeeded in finding what motive Jane Morton
had for poisoning her employer, it appears to me that very little has
been accomplished."

"Ah, you say that before you know the particulars. I am certain we shall
find the motive. What I know now is that Jane Morton is the one who put
the poison in his cup of coffee."

"It would take a good deal of nerve to do that with twenty-six people
around the table. You forget, my dear sir, that she had to pass the
whole length of the table, after taking the cup, before giving it to Mr.
Brenton."

"Half of the people had their backs to her, and the other half, I can
assure you, were not looking at her. If the poison was ready, it was a
very easy thing to slip it into a cup of coffee. There was ample time to
do it, and that is how it was done."

"May I ask how you arrived at that conclusion?"

"Certainly, certainly, my dear sir. My detectives report that each one
of the twenty-seven people they had to follow were shadowed night and
day. But only two of them acted suspiciously. These two were Jane Morton
and Stephen Roland. Stephen Roland's anxiety is accounted for by the
fact that he is evidently in love with Mrs. Brenton. But the change
in Jane Morton has been something terrible. She is suffering from the
severest pangs of ineffectual remorse. She has not gone out again to
service, but occupies a room in one of the poorer quarters of the
city--a room that she never leaves except at night. Her whole actions
show that she is afraid of the police--afraid of being tracked for her
crime. She buys a newspaper every night, locks and bars the door on
entering her room, and, with tears streaming from her eyes,