to have in her. I tapped him gently and so indirectly on the
subject that I could see he knew nothing about her. The undertaker's
card he had found in the hall and brought in and laid on the table,
where I chanced to pick it up, little thinking I would take it as
corroborative of anything that might be said against him. He declared he
had not left the house that night. Smith's men had simply lied when they
said he left with the undertaker. I had a plan for testing his
statement, however.

When he told me how I had driven the Tescheron family to Hoboken for six
weeks, and hinted his suspicions gathered from Gabrielle that the old
gentleman had been forced to settle with some official before returning,
I was almost struck dumb. As he gave me the details of his wretched
experience of that afternoon at the Gibsons', I became desperate.

"Jim, if that wedding comes off next Wednesday, will you forgive me?" I
asked.

"It's impossible."

"What--to forgive me?"

"For me to ever achieve such happiness." From the depths of his despair,
he looked at me entreatingly as he spoke.

CHAPTER XXI

During the night--we turned in about two A. M.--it occurred to me that I
had heard or read that no person could be legally convicted of murder
till the body of the victim had been found dead. This little matter had
been overlooked about long enough, I thought. The lawyers might have
asked concerning the _corpus delicti_, but no one had sought their
advice. It struck me that the common-sense thing to do now was to begin
at the bottom and see Collins, the undertaker, before I went too far in
exonerating Hosley, even though I could never hope to escape the spell
of his innocent, wholehearted manner.

The morning following the arrival of Jim, with his burden of woe,
seeking release through the middleman of yore, I started out early,
determined to do the biggest day's work as an intermediary ever recorded
on Cupid's card index. I found Mr. Collins busy keeping his
professional Prince Albert coat wide open, with both hands in his
trousers pockets, at his quiet "establishment"--so described on the gold
sign. I explained that I wanted some information. He recalled the
Browning case very well, and tried hard to smile when I asked for the
name of the cemetery and its location, that I might visit the grave. I
thought that might stagger him, but it did not.

"You see, this sort of burial was out of my line altogether, but I did
it to p