Selim had sealed it with God only knew what fears in
her heart? If so, Lydia Carr had found that she was her mistress' sole
legatee.... _Revenge, coupled with greed...._ What better motive for
murder could a detective ask? And who had had so good an opportunity as
Lydia Carr to dispose of the weapon?

The woman crouched back on her haunches, an agony of pleading in her
single eye.

"Lydia, I think you know already what this note tells you," Dundee said
slowly.

To his astonishment the maid nodded, the tears starting again. "I asked
her once what she wanted to keep that old dress for, and she--she said
I'd find out some day, but I never dreamed she'd want it for a--oh, my
God!--for a _shroud_!"

For the second time that evening Lydia Carr completely routed Dundee's
carefully worked-up case against her. It was inconceivable, he told
himself, that a mind cunning enough to have executed this murder would
give itself away in such a fashion. If she had indeed pried among her
mistress' papers and found the will and note, would she not, from the
most primitive instinct of self-preservation, have pretended total
ignorance of the note's contents?

"I'll read the note, Lydia," he said gently. "It is addressed: 'My
precious old Lydia'--"

"She was always calling me that!" the maid sobbed.

"And she writes: 'If you ever read this it will be because I'm dead, and
you'll know that I've tried to make it up to you the only way I knew. I
never could believe you really forgave me, but maybe you will now. And
there is one last thing I want you to do for me, Lydia darling. You
remember that old royal blue velvet dress of mine that you were always
sniffing at and either trying to make me give away or have made over?
And remember that I told you that you'd know some time why I kept it?
Well, I want you to lay me out in it, Lydia. Such a funny old-fashioned
shroud, isn't it?... But with dresses long again, maybe it won't look so
funny, and there'll be nobody but you and Lois to see me in it, because
I've said so in my will. And I want my hair dressed as it was the only
time I ever wore the royal blue velvet. A French roll, Lydia, with
little curls coming out the left side of it and hanging down to the left
ear. You brush the hair straight up the back of the head, gather it
together and tie a little bit of black shoestring around it, then you
twist the hair into a roll and spread it high, pinning it down on each
side of the head. _And