true they want you," Dundee assured her. "But you don't have to
take a job now unless you wish, Lydia."

"What do you mean?" the maid demanded harshly, her good eye hardening
with suspicion.

"Lydia," the young detective began slowly, and almost praying that he
was doing the right thing, "when I woke you up tonight to question you,
I said that Nita herself had just told me that it was she who had burned
your face.... And you asked me if she had also given you a message--"

"Yes, sir!" the maid interrupted with pitiful eagerness. "And you'll
tell me now? You don't still think _I_ killed her, do you?"

"No, I don't think you killed your mistress, Lydia, but I think, if you
would, you could help me find out who did," Dundee assured her gravely.
"No, wait!" and he drew from his pocket the envelope inscribed: "To Be
Opened In Case of My Death--Juanita Leigh Selim."

"Do you recognize this handwriting, Lydia?"

"It was wrote by her own hand," the maid answered, her voice husky with
tears. "Is that the message, sir?"

"You never saw it before?" Dundee asked sharply.

"No, no! I didn't know my poor girl was thinking about death," Lydia
moaned. "I thought she was happy here. She was tickled to pieces over
being taken up by all them society people, and on the go day and
night----"

"Lydia, this is Mrs. Selim's last will and testament," Dundee
interrupted, withdrawing the sheets slowly and unfolding them. "It was
written yesterday, and it begins:

"'Knowing that any of us may die any time, and that I, Juanita Leigh
Selim, have good cause to fear that my own life hangs by a thread that
may break any minute--'"

"What did my poor girl mean?" Lydia Carr cried out vehemently. "She
wasn't sick, ever--"

"I think, Lydia, that she feared exactly what happened today--murder!
And I want you to tell me who it was she feared. _For I believe you
know!_"

The woman shrank from him, until she was sitting on her lean haunches,
her hands flattening against her cheeks. For a long minute she did not
attempt to answer. Her right eye widened enormously, then slowly grew as
expressionless as the milky left ball.

"I--don't--know," she said dully. Then, with vehement emphasis: "_I
don't know!_ If I did, I'd kill him with my own hands!"

Dundee had no choice but to take her word.

"You said there was a message for me," Lydia reminded him.

"I'll read you her will first," Dundee said quietly, lifting the sheets
again: "I am herewit