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“Yes, mighty bad, he’s the murderer!”

“What!” exclaimed both his hearers together.

“Yes, no doubt about it,” and Groot told the story of the handkerchief.

Avice looked simply amazed, but Judge Hoyt said, “I’ve looked for this all along.”

“Whyn’t you give us a hint, Judge?”

“I hadn’t enough to base my idea on, to call it a suspicion. I never thought of the handkerchief being his. As a matter of fact, I rather thought it was Mr. Trowbridge’s own, and that the murderer, whoever he was, had used it and left it without fear of its incriminating himself. Surely no one would leave his own handkerchief on the scene of his crime! Are you sure it’s Stryker’s?”

“Positive. But all that can be proved and investigated later. Now we want to nail our bird and jail him. Will you send for him, Miss Trowbridge?”

“Certainly,” and Avice rang a bell, a sorrowful look coming into her eyes at thought of suspecting the old servant.

A parlor-maid appeared, and Avice asked her to send the butler to them.

“Won’t he bolt?” asked Groot, fearing to lose his quarry at the last moment.

“Why should he?” said Avice, “any more than yesterday? He doesn’t know he’s suspected, does he?”

“Oh, no, he couldn’t know it.”

“Then he’ll be here in a minute.”

While waiting, Groot told them, in low tones, about Stryker’s insurance matter.

“Time up next week!” repeated Judge Hoyt. “That looks bad, very bad. I’ve heard Stryker speak of insuring, several times, but I thought nothing about it. He wasn’t asking my advice, merely discussing it as a business proposition. When I’ve been here of an evening with Mr. Trowbridge, we often spoke with Stryker almost as to a friend. He’s an old and trusted servant. I’m desperately sorry to learn all this.”

“So am I,” said Avice. “I do want to track down uncle’s murderer, – but I don’t want it to be Stryker!”

The parlor-maid returned. “Miss Avice,” she said, “Stryker isn’t in the house.”

“Isn’t?” cried Groot, starting up; “where is he?”

“I don’t know, sir, but he can’t be far away. The second man says that Stryker was in his pantry and he answered a telephone call there, and then he just flung on his hat and coat and went out.”

“He’s escaped!” shouted Groot, dashing out of the room and downstairs, two at a time.

And he had. Search of the house showed no trace of the vanished butler, save his belongings in his room. And among these were several handkerchiefs, indisputably from the same lot as the one found at the place of the crime. And a further search of the rooms of every inmate of the household showed no other such handkerchief.

CHAPTER XI
DUANE THE DETECTIVE

Having learned from Avice of Stryker’s relatives, Groot sought the butler at the home of his daughter.

“No,” said Mrs. Adler, a scared-looking young woman, “I don’t know where father is. I haven’t seen him for a day or two. But he can’t be lost.”

“He’s in hiding, madam,” said Groot, “and he must be found. Are you sure he’s not here?”

“Of course, I’m sure. What do you want of him, anyway? My husband is very ill, and I wish you wouldn’t bother me about it. I don’t believe anything has happened to my father, but if there has, I don’t know anything of it. You’ll have to excuse me now, I’m very busy.” She didn’t exactly shut the door in his face, but she came near it, and Groot went away uncertain as to whether she was telling the truth or not.

“I wish I’d searched the house,” he thought. “If Stryker doesn’t turn up soon, I will.”

Stryker didn’t turn up soon, and Groot and his men did search the house of Mrs. Adler and her sick husband, but with no result.

The daughter was apathetic. “Poor father,” she said, “I wonder where he is. But I’m so worried about Mr. Adler, I can think of nothing else.”

There was cause, indeed, for the wife’s anxiety, for Adler was in the late stages of galloping consumption. And the harassed woman, none too well fixed with this world’s goods, was alone, caring for him. Groot’s humanity was touched and he forbore to trouble her further.

“Stryker’s decamped, that’s all,” Groot said; “and flight is confession. It’s clear enough. He wanted this insurance of his for his daughter, the agent told me the policy is payable to her, and he had to take it out before his age limit was reached. He knew of the legacy coming to him, and in order to get his insurance, he hastened the realization of his fortune.”

It did look that way, for Avice and Mrs. Black agreed that Stryker was devoted to his daughter, and they knew of her husband’s desperate illness. Knew too, that she would be left penniless, and was herself delicate and unfit for hard work. Stryker could support her while he lived, but to leave her an income from his life insurance was his great desire. Judge Hoyt, too, said that he knew of this from conversations he had himself had with Stryker. But he had supposed the butler had saved up funds for his insurance premium. He now learned that the support and care of the sick man had made this impossible.

So Stryker was strongly suspected of the crime, and every effort was made to find the missing man.

Meantime Alvin Duane came. Though alleged to be a clever detective, he admitted he found little to work upon.

“It is too late,” he said, “to look for clues on the scene of the crime. Had I been called in earlier, I might have found something, but after nearly a fortnight of damp, rainy weather, one can expect nothing in the way of footprints or other traces, though, of course, I shall look carefully.”

Duane was a middle-aged, grizzled man, and though earnest and serious, was not a brilliant member of his profession. He had, he said himself, no use for the hair-trigger deductions of imaginative brains which, oftener than not, were false. Give him good, material clues, and attested evidence, and he would hunt down a criminal as quickly as anybody, but not from a shred of cloth or a missing cuff-link.

Eleanor Black, with her dislike of detectives of all sorts, was openly rude to Duane. He was in and out of the house at all hours; he was continually wanting to intrude in the individual rooms, look over Mr. Trowbridge’s papers, quiz the servants, or hold long confabs with Avice or Kane Landon or herself, until she declared she was sick of the very sight of him.

“I don’t care,” Avice would say; “if he can find the murderer, he can go about it any way he chooses. He isn’t as sure that Stryker’s guilty as Mr. Groot is. Mr. Duane says if Stryker did it, it was because somebody else hired him or forced him to do it.”

“Well, what if it was? I can’t see, Avice, why you want to keep at it. What difference does it make who killed Rowland? He is dead, and to find his murderer won’t restore him to life. For my part, I’d like to forget all the unpleasant details as soon as possible. I think you are morbid on the subject.”

“Not at all! It’s common justice and common sense to want to punish a criminal, most of all a murderer! Judge Hoyt agrees with me, and so does Kane – ”

“Mr. Landon didn’t want you to get Mr. Duane, you know that.”

“I do know it, but only because Kane thought the mystery too deep ever to be solved. But I am willing to spend a lot of money on it, and Judge Hoyt is willing to share the expense if it becomes too heavy for me alone.”

“The judge would do anything you say, of course. I think you treat him abominably, Avice. You’re everlastingly flirting with Mr. Landon, and it grieves Judge Hoyt terribly.”

“Don’t bother about my love affairs, Eleanor. I can manage them.”

“First thing you know, you’ll go too far, and Judge Hoyt will give you up. He won’t stand everything. And where will your fortune be then?”

“You alarm me!” said Avice, sarcastically. “But when I really need advice, my dear Eleanor, I’ll ask you for it.”

“Oh, don’t let’s quarrel. But I do wish you’d see your detective friends somewhere else. If it isn’t Mr. Duane, it’s that Groot or young Pinckney, and sometimes that ridiculous office boy with the carrot head.”

“His hair is funny, isn’t it? But Fibsy is a little trump. He’s more saddened at Uncle Rowly’s death than lots of better men.”

“Hasn’t he found another place to work yet?”

“He’s had chances, but he hasn’t accepted any so far.”

“Well, he’s a nuisance, coming round here as he does.”

“Why, you needn’t see him, Eleanor. He can’t trouble you, if he just comes now and then to see me. And anyway, he hasn’t been here lately at all.”

“And I hope he won’t. Dear me, Avice, what good times we could have if you’d let up on this ferreting. And you know perfectly well it will never amount to anything.”

“If you talk like that, Eleanor, I’ll go and live somewhere else. Perhaps you’d rather I would.”

“No, not that, – unless you’d really prefer it. But I do hate detectives, whether they’re police, professional or amateur.”

Avice repeated this conversation to Duane, and he proposed that they have some of their interviews in his office, and he would then come to the house less frequently.

So, Avice went to his office and found it decidedly preferable to talk in a place where there was no danger of being overheard by servants or friends.

After due consideration she had concluded to tell the detective about Eleanor’s telephone message the night of the murder and her own subsequent call of the same number.

“This is most important,” said Duane, “why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

“For one thing, Mrs. Black was always within hearing at home, and I didn’t like to.”

“I think I’ll go right now to see this Lindsay; he may give us some valuable information.”

And Lindsay did.

He was a frank, outspoken young man and told Duane all he knew which was considerable.

“Of course, I read all about the murder that the papers told,” he said, “but I always felt there was more to come. What about that housekeeper person?”

“Mrs. Black?”

“Yes. I’ve not wanted to butt in, but she was described in the papers and then, – well, it’s a queer thing, – but some sweet-voiced fairy called me up one day and asked me if I knew Mrs. Black!”

“Perhaps that was the lady herself,” said Duane, who knew better.

“Don’t think so. Sounded more like some damsel in distress. Voice quivered and all that sort of thing. And she said that the Black person had called up this number the very night of the murder! What do you think of that?”

“Strange!” murmured Duane.

“Yes, sir, strange enough, when you realize that Kane Landon occupied these rooms of mine that night.”

“How did that happen?”

“Well, Landon is an old friend of mine, – used to be, that is, – and when he blew in from Denver, with no home and mother waiting for him, and I was just flying off for a few days out of town, I said, ‘Bunk here,’ and he gratefully did. Then next thing I know, he’s gone off to his uncle’s inquest, leaving a note of thanks and farewell! Queer, if you ask me!”

“I do ask you. And I ask you, too, if you’re casting any reflection on Mr. Landon himself?”

“Oh, not that, but you’d think he’d come to see me, or something.”

“Yes, I’d think so. Did he talk to you of money matters?”

“Not to any great extent. Said he had a big mining proposition that meant a fortune if he could get the necessary advance capital. Said he hoped to get it from his uncle.”

“Not meaning by a legacy?”

“Oh, no. Said he was going to bone the old man for it. Which he did, according to the yarn of a fresh office boy.”

“Well, Mr. Lindsay, I’m glad you’re so frank in this matter. Do you know anything further of interest regarding Kane Landon?”

“I’m not sure. What does this housekeeper look like?”

“Rather stunning. Handsome, in a dark, foreign way. Big, black eyes, and – ”

“Look like an adventuress?”

“Yes, I must admit that term describes her.”

“Black, glossy hair, ’most covering her ears, and mighty well groomed?”

“Exactly.”

“Then Kane Landon met that woman by appointment Tuesday afternoon, – the day of his uncle’s murder.”

“Where?”

“In the Public Library. They didn’t see me, but I was attracted at the sight of this beautiful woman on one of the marble benches in one of the halls, evidently waiting for somebody. Then Landon came and he greeted her eagerly. She gave him a small packet, wrapped in paper, and they talked so earnestly they didn’t see me at all. I was only there for a short time, to look up a matter of reference for some people I was visiting. We had motored in from Long Island, – Landon was then in my rooms, you know.”

“What time was this?”

“Just half-past two. I know, because I had told my people I’d meet them again at three, and I wanted a half hour for my research, and had it, too.”

“This is most important, Mr. Lindsay. You are prepared to swear it all as a witness, if called on?”

“Oh, it’s all true, of course. But, I say, I don’t want to get old Landon in trouble.”

“It doesn’t necessarily imply that. Perhaps Mrs. Black may be implicated more than we have supposed. But he, I understand, denies knowing the lady until meeting her here, after his uncle’s death.”

“Nonsense, he knew her for years out in Denver. They are old friends.”

“That, too, is of importance. Why should he wish to pretend they were not?”

“I don’t know, I’m sure. But Landon always was a queer Dick. You know he left college before he was graduated, because of a quarrel with this same uncle. Mr. Trowbridge was putting him through, and they had a tiff about something, and Kane chucked it all, and went off out West. Been there ever since, till just now, and it’s a pity he hadn’t stayed there rather than to get mixed up in this affair.”

“You consider him mixed up in it, then?”

“I wouldn’t say that, but I know the police are still hinting at his possible connection with the matter and the Press, you know, will try to hang the crime on to somebody worth while. They don’t want to suspect highwaymen or Swedish passers-by, if they can get a man higher up. Now, do they?”

“I can’t say. I’ve only just begun on this case, and I wish I’d been called sooner. It’s a great thing to get in at the beginning – ”

“Yes, when the clues are fresh. Well, if I can help you in any way, call on me. Landon is my friend, but if he’s innocent, investigation won’t hurt him, and if he’s implicated, he ought to be shown up.”

Alvin Duane went away, full of new theories. If Kane Landon did kill his uncle, here were several bits of corroborative evidence. If Mrs. Black was an old friend of his, and they had pretended otherwise, that was a suspicious circumstance in itself. And if they were both entirely innocent and unconnected in any way with the murder, why did they meet secretly in the library instead of openly at the Trowbridge home? These things must be explained, and satisfactorily, too.

Also, what was in the package that she went there to give him? Lindsay had said it was about the size of a brick, but flatter. Was it, could it have been a handkerchief of Stryker’s? Duane’s brain was leaping wildly now. Supposing these two conspirators were responsible for the murder. Supposing Kane had been the subject of his uncle’s dying words, and had himself committed the deed, might it not be that the adventuress (as he already called Mrs. Black) had brought him a handkerchief of the butler’s in deliberate scheming to fasten the crime on Stryker! That Landon had left it there purposely, and that Stryker discovering this, had fled, in fear of being unable to prove his innocence.

All theory, to be sure, but well-founded theory backed by the recorded facts, which Duane had studied till he knew them by heart.

Then the telephone caller who said “Uncle” was really the nephew, and the “stephanotis” and Caribbean Sea were jokes between the two, or as was more likely, figments of the stenographer’s fertile brain.

On an impulse, Duane went to see Miss Wilkinson, the stenographer, and verify his ideas.

“You’re sure it was a man’s voice?” he asked her.

“Sure,” she replied, always ready to reiterate this, though she had been quizzed about it a dozen times.

“Do you think it could have been Mr. Landon?”

“Yes, I think it could have been Mr. Landon, or Mr. Stryker, or the President of the United States. There isn’t anybody I don’t think it could have been! I tell you the voice was purposely disguised. Sort of squeaky and high pitched. So can’t you see that it was really a man with a natchelly low voice? You detectives make me tired! I give you the straight goods that it was a disguised voice, and so, unreckonizable. Then you all come round and say, ‘was it this one?’ ‘was it that one?’ I tell you I don’t know. If I’d a known whose voice it was, I’d a told at the inquest. I ain’t one to keep back the weels of justice, I ain’t!”

“Never mind the voice then. Tell me again of those queer words – ”

“Oh, for the land’s sake! I wish I’d never heard ’em! Well, one was stephanotis, – got that? It’s a very expensive puffume, and the next man that asks me about it, has got to gimme a bottle. I had a bottle onct – ”

“I know, I know,” said Duane, hastily, “that’s how you came to know the name.”

“Yep. Now, go on to the Caribbean Sea.” The blonde looked cross and bored. “No, I don’t know why anybody invited Mr. Trowbridge to the Caribbean; if I had I’d been most pleased to tell long ago. But somebody did. I heard it as plain as I hear you now. Yes, I’m sure it was the Caribbean Sea, and not the Medtranean nor the Red Sea nor the Bay of Oshkosh! So there, now. Anything else this morning?”

“How pettish you are!”

“And so would you be if everybody was a pesterin’ you about them old words. Can I help it if the man talked Greek? Can I help it if he squeaked his voice so’s I couldn’t reckonize it? I gave my testimony and it was all recorded. Why can’t you read that over and let me alone, I’d like to know!”

But after a pleasant little gift of a paper, fresh from the United States Bureau of Engraving and Printing, Miss Wilkinson grew a little more sunny tempered.

“No,” she said, in answer to Duane’s last question, “I can’t quite remember whether the voice said he had set a trap or somebody else had set one. But I’m positive he said one or the other. And he said the trap was set for Mr. Trowbridge, – whoever set it.”

CHAPTER XII
A NEW THEORY

Alvin Duane had to report to Avice and to Judge Hoyt the result of his interview with Lindsay.

The detective had an idea that Avice would be far from pleased at the possible incrimination of Kane Landon. Duane knew that Miss Trowbridge was reported engaged to Judge Hoyt, but he had seen and heard her in conversation with the judge, and to his astute observation she did not seem desperately in love with him. This, to be sure, was none of his business, but he greatly desired to find out just where the affections of his young employer lay. Moreover, he had a slight suspicion that the girl was a little jealous of the beautiful widow’s attractions, but whether this jealousy was directed toward Landon or the judge he did not know. And he chose his own method of discovering.

Avice came to his office by appointment to learn his news. Duane greeted her, looking admiringly at the slender figure, so pathetic in its dull black draperies. But there was a vivid color in the girl’s cheeks, and a sparkle of excitement in her eyes, as she sat down, eager to learn the latest developments.

“Mr. Duane,” she said, “I see by your very manner that you learned something from my unknown friend, Mr. Lindsay.”

“I did,” and Duane looked mysterious and important.

“Well, tell me! I am all impatience!”

Pursuing the plan he had formulated to himself, he said, impressively, “I’ve a new theory.”

“Yes,” said the girl, breathlessly.

“I think Mrs. Black is the criminal,” he declared, bluntly.

Avice almost laughed. “How absurd!” she said. “Why, Mrs. Black was with me all that afternoon.”

“That’s just it! She stayed and kept you at home on purpose. I don’t mean she actually committed the murder, but she instigated it.”

“And who was her accomplice?”

“Stryker, the house man, of course.”

Avice began to be a little interested. She had never really liked Stryker. He seemed to her shifty and deceitful. “But how?” she asked.

“Easy enough. The man simply took a knife from the kitchen, followed his master to the woods, and waylaid him.”

“How did he know Uncle Rowly was going to the woods?”

“He telephoned him at his office to go to Van Cortlandt Park. You remember the stenographer said the man who telephoned called Mr. Trowbridge ‘Uncle’.”

“And Stryker did that?”

“Yes; to be misleading.”

“But Stryker didn’t know Kane Landon had come on from the West.”

“Yes, he did. Landon telephoned the night before. You were all out and Stryker took the message.”

“How do you know?”

“I have ferreted it all out from the other servants. The facts, I mean, – not my deductions from them.”

“Have you spoken to them about Stryker?”

“No; I wanted to speak to you about it first.”

“Mr. Duane, I will be frank with you. I don’t want Kane Landon suspected of this crime. I know he is innocent. I know, too, that some evidence seems to be against him. But that is only seeming. He is entirely innocent. Now, if Stryker is innocent, also, I don’t want to direct suspicion to him. And it doesn’t seem to me you have any real evidence against him.”

“But, my theory is that he was only a tool in the hands of the principal criminal.”

“Mrs. Black?”

“Yes.”

“Preposterous! Incredible!”

“Not at all. Mrs. Black was engaged to your uncle, but she did not love him. She was marrying for a fortune. Then she heard that Landon, whom she has known for years, was coming East, and she connived with Stryker to put the old gentleman out of the way.”

“Uncle Rowly was only in the fifties, that is not old.”

“Old compared with Kane Landon. And as I told you, Miss Trowbridge, this is largely theory. But many facts support it, and it ought to be looked into.”

“Then the thing to do, is to lay it before Judge Hoyt. He will know what is the best way to sift the theory to a conclusion.”

But when the three were together in Hoyt’s office, and Duane told the whole story of his interview with Jim Lindsay, the detective laid aside his pretence of still suspecting Stryker and enumerated his reasons for looking in the direction of Landon.

“That must be a true bill about his meeting that adventuress in the library,” he argued; “it couldn’t have been anybody else but Mrs. Black.”

“Why couldn’t it?” Avice spoke fiercely, and her brown eyes were full of indignant amazement at the tale Duane had told.

“Lindsay saw her picture in the papers, and anyway, it all fits in. You see, those two were pals in Denver, and they kept it quiet. That’s enough to rouse suspicion in itself. The old butler is no sort of a suspect. To be sure he wanted the money to get his insurance before the time was up, but he wouldn’t commit murder for that – ”

“Why wouldn’t he?” demanded Avice, “as likely as that a man’s own nephew would do it?”

“He isn’t an own nephew,” said Judge Hoyt, slowly. “I don’t want to subscribe to your theory, Duane, but I’m startled at this library story. Of course, Landon had a right to meet anybody he chose and wherever he chose, but why keep secret his previous acquaintance with the widow?”

“He might have lots of good reasons for that,” and Avice looked pleadingly at the judge. “Don’t you turn against him, Leslie; you know him too well to think him capable of crime.”

“Of the two I would rather it had been Stryker,” said the judge, “but we can’t ignore definite evidence like this. Did Mrs. Black go out that afternoon, Avice?”

“Yes,” replied the girl, unwillingly. “She went out soon after luncheon and stayed about an hour.”

“Time to go to the library and back. Duane, you’re drawing a long bow, to jump at the conclusion that the housekeeper took a handkerchief of Stryker’s, to be used as a false clue that would incriminate the butler! It’s almost too much of a prearranged performance.”

“Of course it is!” cried Avice. “Kane is a firebrand and impulsive and hotheaded, but he’s not a deliberate criminal! If he killed Uncle Rowly, – which he never did, never! – he did it in the heat of a quarrel, or under some desperate provocation. I wish you had never come to us, Mr. Duane! I don’t want Stryker found guilty, but I’d a thousand times rather he did it than Kane. I dismiss you, Mr. Duane. You may give up the case, and tell no one of these wrong and misleading circumstances you’ve discovered.”

“Wait, wait, Avice,” and Judge Hoyt spoke very gently; “we can’t lay aside evidence in that way. These things must be looked into. They must be told to the district attorney, and investigated, then if Landon is innocent, as he doubtless is, he can explain all that now looks dark against him.”

“Don’t accuse him!” flared Avice, “go to Eleanor Black, and ask her what was in the parcel she took to Kane. She is the wrongdoer, if either of them is. She telephoned him that night of Uncle’s death, and she said – ”

“What did she say?” asked Hoyt, as Avice stopped short.

Compelled by the insistent glances of the two men, Avice went on: “She said she’d meet him the next day at the same time and place. That proves there was nothing wrong about it.”

It didn’t prove this conclusively to her two listeners, and they quizzed her further until she admitted that she had reason to think that Landon and Mrs. Black had known each other before Avice had introduced them.

“How do you explain that,” asked Duane, “unless they were concealing something, – some plan or a secret of some sort?”

“And suppose they were! It needn’t have been anything connected with Uncle Rowly’s death. If they knew each other in Denver, all the more likely they had business of some sort that they didn’t care to have known.”

The girl was arguing against her own suspicions as much as against theirs. A terrible fear clutched at her heart, and surging emotions choked her speech. For, as she pictured Kane as a suspected criminal, came the even more heartrending thought that he was in love with Eleanor Black! Quickly to Avice’s sensitive intuitions came the conviction that Landon would not be holding secret conferences and having secrets with Eleanor unless they were or had been lovers. And yet, he had told Avice he loved her. But, granting all this she was hearing today, what faith could she put in his speech or actions?

“I can only repeat what I said, Mr. Duane,” she asserted, with dignity, “I hereby release you from your engagement on this case, and I will willingly pay you for the time you have wasted, – worse than wasted! And I hope never to see you again!” Here Avice was unable longer to control her tears.

Greatly distressed, Judge Hoyt attempted to soothe her, but met only with rebuff.

“You’re just as bad,” she sobbed. “You, too, want to prove Kane mixed up in this, when you know he isn’t – he couldn’t be! – ”

“There, Avice, there, dear, dry your eyes and go home now. I will talk this over with Mr. Duane, and if there is any way of disproving or discrediting this evidence, rest assured – ”

“Oh, can you do that, Leslie?” and the girl looked up hopefully; “isn’t there a thing called ‘striking out’ anything you don’t want to use against a person?”

“That’s a broad view of it,” and Judge Hoyt smiled a little, “but you run along, dear, and after a confab with Mr. Duane, I’ll come up and tell you all about it.”

The confab wound up by a trip to the office of the district attorney. The situation was too grave to allow of what Avice called “striking out”! If Landon and Mrs. Black were implicated in suspicious collusion, the matter must be sifted to the bottom.

District Attorney Whiting eagerly absorbed the new facts recounted to him, and fitted them into some he had of his own knowledge.

Landon had sent fifty thousand dollars to the mining company of Denver in which he was interested. He had not yet realized on his inheritance, for the estate had not been settled, but he had doubtless borrowed on his prospective legacy. This proved nothing, except that he had been most anxious for the large sum of money, and had utilized his acquisition of it as soon as possible.

“We must get at this thing adroitly,” counseled Judge Hoyt. “Landon is a peculiar chap, and difficult to bait. If he thinks we suspect him, he’s quite capable of bolting, I think. Better try to trip up the housekeeper. She’s a vain woman, amenable to flattery. Perhaps if Mr. Groot went to her, ostensibly suspecting, – say, Stryker, – he could learn something about her relations with Landon. And by the way, how are you going to find Stryker?”

“Through his daughter,” Whiting replied. “That butler is no more the murderer than I am; and he is hiding, because he’s afraid of that handkerchief clue.”

“It is certainly an incriminating piece of evidence,” observed Hoyt.

“It is. But not against the butler. That handkerchief is a plant. On the face of it, it is certainly too plain an indication to be the real thing. No, sir, the murderer, whoever he was, stole the butler’s handkerchief to throw suspicion on the butler. And who could do this so easily as the housekeeper, or some member of the household, who had access to Stryker’s room? Landon wasn’t at the house, that we know of, before the murder, therefore, the theory of the housekeeper bringing the handkerchief to him at their library interview, just fits in and makes it all plausible.”

“It may be,” said Judge Hoyt, looking doubtful; “it may possibly be, Whiting; but go slowly. Don’t jump at this, to me, rather fantastic solution. Track it down pretty closely, before you spring it on the public.”

“All of that, Judge Hoyt! I’ve no idea of spiking my own guns by telling all this too soon. But there’s work to be done, and first of all we must find that butler. If he can be made to think we don’t accuse him, he’ll come round, and we may learn a lot from him. We missed our chances in not questioning him more closely at first.”

Meantime Avice had gone home, and on the way, her mood had changed from sorrow to anger. She was angry at herself for having insisted on the employing of Alvin Duane. She remembered how Kane had opposed it, but she was so zealous in her hunt for justice that she ignored all objections. She was angry at Kane for hobnobbing with Eleanor Black, and also for deceiving her about their previous acquaintance. She was angry at Eleanor for knowing Kane and pretending that they were strangers. She was angry at Judge Hoyt for not dismissing Duane and obliterating even from his own memory all that stuff the detective had discovered. She was furiously angry at Duane, but that was a helpless, blind sort of rage that reacted upon herself for engaging him.