you."

Muldoon, happy to find himself relieved of patrol duty and assigned to
this important case, proceeded toward the door, a broad smile illumining
the wide area of his dull face. He shut the door softly behind him, but
reopened it almost immediately, a look of bewilderment in his eyes.

"The woman--the one I saw--she's outside talkin' to Detective Greig!" he
gasped.

Britz shot one quick glance at him, then said:

"Remain outside until I send for you."

Five minutes later and the door opened again, this time to admit Greig
and a woman--a woman so perceptibly under the influence of overpowering
emotions as to cause her to stagger rather than walk into the room. As
she stood with hands resting on Britz's desk, she suddenly felt herself
seized with a desire to weep. Wiping the moisture from the corners of
her eyes, she accepted the chair which Greig offered, settling herself
in it as if she had come for a long stay.

[Illustration: She felt herself seized with a desire to weep]

There was an awkward pause, which was broken by Greig:

"This lady, Miss Strong, has valuable information."

She turned her moistened eyes on Britz, who, through half-closed lids,
was endeavoring to appraise her.

Keen student of human nature that he was, quick as he was to gather
those little details of personal appearance which, to the trained eye,
reveal with pitiless accuracy the innermost character of a human being,
Britz was unable to form any satisfactory estimate of her. Outwardly,
she had the appearance of a woman crushed beneath a great grief. Yet,
there appeared to be something insincere in her sorrow, something
calculating in her hesitancy. These contradictions in her manner puzzled
and annoyed him, for experience had taught the detective to be wary of
women informers. So he waited for her to speak.

"I wish to deliver the murderer of Mr. Whitmore," she said, stifling a
sob.

Britz nodded encouragingly, but she appeared in no haste to proceed.
Instead, she permitted her gaze to alternate between him and Greig, as
if trying to read the effect of her words in their impassive faces.

Her pause might have been that of the consummate actress waiting to note
the effect of her artfully delivered line; it might have been the
timorous uncertainty of a child affrighted at its own boldness.

"The murderer will be at my home at eleven to-night," she went on in the
same seemingly artless way.

"And you are preparing a trap fo