"You mean that's your position," Bristow quoted back to him, his smile indulgent.

"Yes. Carpenter's not guilty, and Morley's not guilty."

Mr. Fulton, who had the chair immediately on the lame man's left, was frankly curious and anxious.

"Before you go any further, Braceway," he interrupted testily, "can you tell us where George Withers is?"

"I can say this much," replied Braceway after a pause: "for reasons best known to himself, Withers refused to join us here. He could have done so if he had wished."

What he said sounded like a direct accusation of Withers. Fulton eyed him incredulously. Bristow took off his coat and settled himself more comfortably in his chair; he was in for a long story, he thought, and, as he had expected last night, the dead woman's husband, not Morley, was to be incriminated.

Greenleaf, lolling back in a rocker near the folding doors of the dining room, gazed at the ceiling, making a show of lack of interest.

Abrahamson, nearest the porch door, was the only auditor thoroughly absorbed in the detective's story and at the same time unreservedly credulous.

"But you know where he is?" Fulton persisted.

"Yes; approximately."

The Jew's sparkling eyes darted from the speaker to the faces of the others. A pleased smile lifted the corners of his mouth toward the great, hooked nose. He anticipated unusually pleasant entertainment.

"But I don't want to waste your time," Braceway continued, taking peculiar care in his choice of words. "When I began work on this case, I thought either the negro or Morley might be the murderer. I changed my mind when I came to think about the mysterious fellow, the man with the brown beard and the gold tooth, the individual who was clever enough to appear and disappear at will, to vanish without leaving a trace so long as he operated at night or in the dusk of early evening.

"I agreed with Mr. Fulton that he was the murderer. Not only that, but he had remarkable ability which he employed for the lowest and most criminal purposes. I first suspected his identity right after my interviews last Wednesday with Roddy, the coloured bellboy, and Mr. Abrahamson, the pawn broker."

"Excuse me," Bristow interposed; "but wasn't it Abrahamson who told you the bearded man looked like Withers?"

Greenleaf grinned, appreciating the lame man's intention to take the wind out of Braceway's sails by giving credit to Abrahamson for the information.

"Yes, he told me that," Braceway answered, as if nettled by the interruption; and added: "Let me finish my statement, Bristow. You can discuss it all you please later on. But I'd prefer to get through with it now.

"Having suspected the identity of the disguised man, I was confronted with two jobs. One was to prove the identity beyond question; the other was to show, by irrefutable evidence, that the disguised man committed the murder. As I said, my theory took shape in my mind that afternoon in my room in the Brevord Hotel. Everything I've done since then, has been for the purpose of getting the necessary facts.

"I have those facts now."

He looked at Greenleaf and Bristow, making it plain that he expected their hostility to anything he had to say.

"My suspicion grew out of my belief that I must find the man who had blackmailed Mrs. Withers in Atlantic City and Washington, and, for the third time, here in Furmville. The blackmailer was the only one who had had access to the victim on the three different occasions of which we know; the work was all by the same hand. Find the blackmailer, and I had the murderer.

"I know now who he is.

"Five years ago there was a striking sort of individuality that had impressed itself on the minds of a good many men in Wall Street, New York City. Although penniless at the outset of his career, and in fact never really rich, he had made a good deal of money now and then; and had spent it as fast as he got it.

"He was brilliant, thoroughly unscrupulous, absolutely without honour. He did the 'Great White Way' stunt—the restaurants, the roof gardens, a pretty actress at times, jewels and champagne. Because of his uncertain habits, he never had an office of his own. He always operated through others. His earning power was a gift of judging the market and knowing when to 'bear' and when to 'bull.'

"This gift was no fabulous thing. It was real in a majority of the times he tried to use it, and because of it he was able to live high and put up a good front. This was the situation up to five years ago. Observe the man's character and the pleasure he took in running crooked.

"With a little study and the usual amount of industry and concentration, he could have been a power in the financial world. That, however, did not appeal to him. He liked the excitement of crime, the perverted pleasure of playing the crook.

"Early in nineteen-thirteen, a little more than five years ago, the crash came. He was arrested, charged with the embezzlement of thirty-three hundred dollars from the firm which employed him. The name of the firm was Blanchard and Sebastian. He had stolen more than the amount mentioned, but the specific charge on which action was taken was the theft of the thirty-three hundred.

"This man's name was Splain.

"There was a delay of a few hours in arranging for his bail so that he wouldn't have to spend the night in prison. While in his cell, he remarked:

"'This kind of a place doesn't suit me. It's as cold as charity. I'll be out of here in an hour or so, and, if they ever get me into a cell again, they'll have to kill me first. Once is enough.'

"He made good his boast. They didn't get him into one again. He jumped his bail ten days before the date set for his trial. Since then the police have, so far as they know, never laid eyes on him. They had a photograph of him, of course, an adequate description: high aquiline nose; firm, compressed mouth; black and unusually piercing eyes; black hair; all his features sharp-cut; broad shoulders, and slender, athletic figure. Those are some of the details I recall. In——"

Fulton cried out. It was like the shrill, indefinite protest of a child against pain. He put the fingers of his right hand to his forehead, shielding his face. The description of the fugitive had brought instantly to his mind the face of George Withers.

"Indulge me for just a few moments more, Mr. Fulton," Braceway said. "Splain eluded the pursuit. His flight and disappearance were perfectly planned and carried out, and——"

Bristow again interrupted the recital. On his face was a smile which did not reach to his eyes. For the past few minutes he had been thinking faster than he had ever thought in his life, and had made a decision.

"What you've told us," he said calmly, his gaze taking knowledge of no one but the detective, "is, in effect, a rather flattering sketch of a part of my own life."

Greenleaf, with jaw dropped and thinking powers paralyzed, stared at him. Fulton leaned forward as if to spring.

Only Abrahamson, his smile broadening, his cavernous eyes alight, was free from surprise. He had now the air of greatly enjoying the performance he had been invited to see.

Braceway, his shoulders flung back, his figure straight as a poplar, watching Bristow with intense caution, grew suddenly into heroic mould. The red glow from the setting sun streamed through the window to his face, emphasizing the ardour in his eyes. He took a step forward, became dominant, menacing.

His white-clad arm shot out so that he pointed with accusing finger to the imperturbable Bristow.

"That man there," he declared, a crawling contempt in his voice, "is the thief and the murderer!"

For a heavy moment the incredible accusation stunned the entire group.

"Mr. Braceway," said Bristow, looking now at Fulton and Greenleaf, "is suffering a delusion."

The two men, however, afforded him no support. They kept their eyes on Braceway. They gave the effect of falling away from some evil contagion.

"Because," Bristow continued, "I have been the innocent victim of trumped up charges of embezzlement by the crookedest man in a crooked business, he accuses me of murder when——"

"Shut up!" commanded Braceway, dropping his hand to his side.

He flashed the pawn broker a quick glance.

Abrahamson leaned over and rapped with his knuckles on the door to the porch. It opened, admitting two policemen in uniform.

"I took the liberty, chief," Braceway apologized, "of requesting them to be here. I knew you'd want them to do the right thing, and promptly."

Greenleaf gulped, nodded acquiescence. Stunned as he was, the detective's manner forced him into believing the charge.

Bristow's smile had faded. But, save for a pallor that wiped from his checks their usual flush, there was no evidence of the conflict within him. So far as any notice from him went, the policemen did not exist.

One of them stepped forward and laid a hand on his shoulder.

He ignored it

"Perhaps," he said, sarcasm in his voice, his eyes again on Braceway, "it will occur to you that I've a right to know why this outrage is committed."

Once more he commanded Greenleaf with his eyes.

"The chief of police will hardly sanction it without some excuse, without a shadow of evidence."

"Yes," Greenleaf complied waveringly. "Er—, that is—er—I suppose you're certain about this, Mr. Braceway?"

"Let's have it! Let's have it all!" demanded Fulton, articulate at last, his clenched hands shaken by the palsy of rage.

Bristow, with a careless motion, brushed away the policeman's hand.

"By all means," he said, imperturbable still; "I demand it. I'm not guilty of murder. Not by the wildest flight of the craziest fancy can any such charge be substantiated."

Greenleaf, noting his iron nerve, his freedom from the slightest sign of panic, was dumbfounded, and believed in his innocence again.

"I have the proofs," Braceway said to the chief. "Do you want them here, and now?"

"It might be—er—as well, and—and fair, you know. Yes."

Abrahamson swung the porch door shut. The two policemen stood back of Bristow of chair. Greenleaf, still bewildered, laid a calming hand on Fulton's shoulder. The old man was shaking like a leaf.

"All right," agreed Braceway. "I can give you the important points in a very few minutes; the high lights."



CHAPTER XXVIII

CONFESSION VOLUNTARY

Braceway leaned against the mantel, relaxed, swinging his cane slowly in his right hand, a careless, easy grace in his attitude. He addressed himself to Fulton and Greenleaf, an occasional glance including Abrahamson in the circle of those for whose benefit he spoke.

Bristow listened now in unfeigned absorption, estimating every statement, weighing each detail. The tenseness of his pale face showed how he forced his brain to concentration.

"Having decided that the bearded man and the murderer were the same," Braceway began, "I asked myself this question: 'Who, of all those in Furmville, is so connected with the case now that I am warranted in thinking he did the previous blackmailing and this murder?' And I eliminated in my own mind everybody but Lawrence Bristow. He was the one, the only one, who could have annoyed Mrs. Withers one and four years ago, respectively, and also could have murdered her.

"Morley was at once out of the reckoning; he had known the Fultons for only the past three years. To consider the negro, Perry Carpenter, would have been absurd. Withers, of course, was beyond suspicion. Everything pointed to Bristow.

"With that decision last Wednesday afternoon, I went to Number Five and got all the finger-prints visible on the polished surfaces of the chair which was handled, overturned, in the living room the night of the murder. Fortunately, this polish was inferior enough to have been made gummy by the rain and dampness that night; and, in the stress of the few days following, had been neither dusted nor wiped off.

"Bristow did not touch this chair the morning the murder was discovered. In fact, he cautioned everybody not to touch it.

"Reliable witnesses say he didn't touch it between then and the time I got the finger-prints. He declares he was never in the bungalow before he entered it in response to Miss Fulton's cry for help.

"I found on the chair the finger-prints of five different persons, four afterwards identified: Miss Fulton, the coroner, Miss Kelly and Lucy Thomas. The fifth I was unable to check up then.

"I did so later, in Washington.

"It was identical with the print of Bristow's fingers on the glass top of a table in his hotel room there. I didn't depend on my own judgment for that. I had with me an expert on finger-prints. And finger-prints, as you all know, never lie.

"All this established the fact, beyond question, that Bristow had been secretly in the living room of Number Five before, or at the time of, the commission of the crime."

He paused, giving them time to appreciate the full import of that chain of facts.

For the space of half a minute, the room was a study in still life. The sound of Fulton's grating teeth was distinctly audible. Bristow made a quick move, as if to speak, but checked the impulse.

"In Washington," Braceway resumed, "he had the hemorrhage. It was faked—a red-ink hemorrhage. Before the arrival of the physician who was summoned, Bristow had ordered a bellboy to wrap the 'blood-stained' handkerchief and towel in a larger and thicker towel and to have the whole bundle burned at once.

"This, he explained to the boy, was because of his desire that nobody be put in danger of contracting tuberculosis.

"By bribing the porter who had been directed to do the burning, I got a look at both the handkerchief and the towel. They were soaked right enough, thoroughly soaked—in the red ink.

"The physician was easily deceived because, when he came in, all traces of the so-called blood had been obliterated. Altogether, it was a clever trick on Bristow's part.

"His motive for staging it and for arranging for a long and uninterrupted sleep was clear enough. There was something he wanted to do unobserved, something so vital to him that he was willing to take an immense amount of trouble with it. Golson's detective bureau let me have the best trailer, the smoothest 'shadow,' in the business—Tom Ricketts.

"At my direction he followed Bristow from the Willard Hotel to the electric car leaving Washington for Baltimore at one o'clock. Reaching Baltimore at two-thirty, Bristow pawned the emeralds and diamonds at two pawnshops. He caught the four o'clock electric car back to Washington, and was in his room long before six, the hour at which his nurse, Miss Martin, was to wake him.

"On the Baltimore trip he had a left leg as sound as mine and wore no brace of any kind. He did wear a moustache, and bushy eyebrows, which changed his appearance tremendously. Also, he had changed the outline of his face and the shape of his lips.

"While he was in Baltimore, I searched the bedroom in which he was supposed to be asleep.

"Miss Martin, in whom I had been obliged to confide, helped me. We found in the two-inch sole of the left shoe, which of course he did not take with him, a hollow place, a very serviceable receptacle. In it was the bulk of the missing Withers jewelry, the stones unset, pried from their gold and platinum settings.

"They are, I dare say, there now."

The two policemen stared wide-eyed at Bristow. He was, they decided, the "slickest" man they had ever seen.

"You see why he executed the trick? It was to establish forever, beyond the possibility of question, his innocence. Plainly, if an unknown man pawned the Withers jewelry in Baltimore while Bristow slept, exhausted by a major hemorrhage, in Washington, his case was made good, his alibi perfect.

"You can appreciate now how he built up his fake case against Perry Carpenter, his use of the buttons, his creeping about at night, like a villain in cheap melodrama, dropping pieces of the jewelry where they would incriminate the negro most surely, and his exploitation of the 'winning clue,' the finger nail evidence.

"Furthermore, he gave Lucy Thomas a frightful beating to force from her the statement against Perry. In this, he was brutal beyond belief. I saw that same afternoon the marks of his blows on her shoulders. They were sufficient proofs of his capacity for unbridled rage. The sight of them strengthened my conviction that, in a similar mood, he had murdered Mrs. Withers."

"The negro lied!" Bristow broke in at last, his words a little fast despite his surface equanimity. "I subjected her to no ill treatment whatever. Anyway"—he dismissed it with a wave of his hand—"it's a minor detail."

Braceway, without so much as a glance at him, continued:

"And that gave me my knowledge of her being a partial albino. She has patches of white skin across her shoulders, and Perry, in struggling with her for possession of the key to Number Five, had scratched her there badly. That, I think, disposes of the finger nail evidence against Carpenter.

"The rest followed as a matter of course. An examination of Major Ross' collection of circulars describing those 'wanted' by the police of the various cities for the past six years revealed the photograph of Splain. Bristow has changed his appearance somewhat—enough, perhaps, to deceive the casual glance—but the identification was easy.

"I then ran over to New York and got the Splain story. I knew he was so dead sure of having eluded everybody that he would stay here in Furmville. But, to make it absolutely sure, I sent him yesterday a telegram to keep him assured that I was working with him and ready to share discoveries with him. And I confess it afforded me a little pleasure, the sending of that wire. I was playing a kind of cat-and-mouse game."

Bristow put up his hand, demanding attention. When Braceway ignored the gesture, he leaned back, smiling, derisive.

"Morley's embezzlement and its consequences gave me a happy excuse for keeping on this fellow's trail while he was busy perfecting the machinery for Perry's destruction. The man's self-assurance, his conceit——"

"I've had enough of this!" Bristow cut in violently, exhibiting his first deep emotion. He turned to Greenleaf:

"Haven't you had enough of this drool? What's the man trying to establish anyhow? He talks in one breath about my having changed the outline of my face and the shape of my mouth, and in the next second about recognizing as me a photograph which he admits was taken at least six years ago!

"It's an alibi for himself, an excuse for not being able to prove that I'm the man who pawned the jewelry in Baltimore! It's thinner than air!"

But Greenleaf's defection was now complete.

"Go on," he said to Braceway. The more he thought of the full extent to which the embezzler had gulled him for the past week, the more he raged.

"Not for me! I don't want any more of the drivel!" Bristow objected again, his voice raucous and still directed to Greenleaf. "What's your idea? I admit I'm wanted in New York on a trumped-up charge of embezzlement. This detective, by a stroke of blind luck, ran into that; and, as I say, I admit it.

"You can deal with that as you see fit; that is, if you want to deal with it after what I've done for law and order, and for you, in this murder case.

"But you can't be crazy enough to take any stock in this nonsense about my having been connected with the crime. Exercise your own intelligence! Great God, man! Do you mean to say you're going to let him cram this into you?"

He got himself more in hand.

"Think a minute. You know me well, chief. And you, Mr. Fulton, you're no child to be bamboozled and turned into a laughing stock by a detective who finds himself without a case—a pseudo expert on crime who tries to work the age-old trick of railroading a man guilty of a less offense!"

"This is no place for an argument of the case," Braceway said crisply. "Mr. Abrahamson, tell us what you know about this man."

"It is not much, Mr. Braceway," the Jew replied; "not as much as I would like. I've seen him several times; once in my place when he was fixed up with moustache and so forth, and twice when he was fixed up with a beard and a gold tooth; once again when he was sitting out here on his porch."

Abrahamson talked rapidly, punctuating his phrases with quick gestures, enjoying the importance of his role.

"Mr. Braceway," he explained smilingly to Greenleaf, "talked to me about the man with the beard—talked more than you did, chief. You know Mr. Braceway—how quick he is. He talked and asked me to try to remember where and when I had seen this Mr. Bristow. I had my ideas and my association of ideas. I remembered—remembered hard. That afternoon I took a holiday—I don't take many of those—and I walked past here. 'I bet you,' I said to myself—not out real loud, you understand—'I bet you I know that man.' And I won my bet. I did know him.

"This Mr. Splain and the man with the beard are the same, exactly the same."

Bristow's smile was tolerant, as if he dealt with a child. But Fulton, his angry eyes boring into the accused man, saw that, for the first time, there were tired lines tugging the corners of his mouth. It was an expression that heralded defeat, the first faint shadow of despair.

"You have my story, and I've the facts to prove it a hundred times over," Braceway announced. "Why waste more time?"

"For the simple reason," Bristow fought on, "that I'm entitled to a fair deal, an honest——"

On the word "honest" Braceway turned with his electric quickness to Greenleaf, and, as he did so, Bristow leaned back in his chair, as if determined not to argue further. His face assumed its hard, bleak calm; his cold self-control returned.

"Now, get this!" Braceway's incisive tone whipped Greenleaf to closer attention. "You've an embezzler and murderer in your hands. He admits one crime; I've proved the other. The rest is up to you. Put the irons on him. Throw him into a cell! You'll be proud of it the rest of your life. Here's the warrant."

He drew the paper from his hip pocket and tossed it to the chief.

"Get busy," he insisted. "This man's the worst type of criminal I've ever encountered. Not content with blackmailing and robbing a woman, he murdered her; not satisfied with that, he deliberately planned the death of an innocent man because he, in his cowardice, was afraid to take the ordinary chances of escaping detection. By openly parading his pursuit of breakers of the law, he secured secretly his opportunity to excel their basest actions. He——"

Quicker than thought, Braceway lunged forward with his cane and struck the hand Bristow had lifted swiftly to his throat. The blow sent a pocket knife clattering to the floor. A policeman, picking it up, saw that the opened blade worked on a spring.

The accused man sank back in his chair. The gray immobility of his face had broken up. The features worked curiously, forming themselves for a second to a pattern of mean vindictiveness. His right hand still numbed by the blow, he took his handkerchief with the left and flicked from his neck, close to the ear, a single red bead.

"Search him," Braceway ordered one of the officers.

Bristow submitted to that. When he looked at Braceway, his face was still bleak.

"You've got me," he said in a tone thoroughly matter-of-fact. "I'm through. I'll give you a statement."

"You mean a confession?"

"It amounts to that."

"Not here," Braceway refused curtly. "We've no stenographer."

"I'd prefer to write it myself anyway," he insisted. "It won't take me fifteen minutes on the typewriter." Seeing Braceway hesitate, he added: "You'll get it this way, or not at all. Suit yourself."

The detective did not underestimate the man's stubborn nerve.

"I'm agreeable, chief," he said to Greenleaf, "if you are."

"Yes," the chief agreed. "It's as good here as anywhere else."

Darkness had grown in the room. Abrahamson and the policeman pulled down the window shades. Greenleaf turned on the lights.

Bristow limped to the typewriter and sat down. Braceway opened the drawer of the typewriter stand and saw that it contained nothing but sheets of yellow "copy" paper cut to one-half the size of ordinary letter paper.

Every trace of agitation had left Bristow. Colour crept back into his cheeks.

Braceway and Greenleaf watched him closely. They had the idea that he still contemplated suicide, that he sought to divert their attention from himself by interesting them in what he wrote. They remembered the boast he had made in the cell in New York.

He felt their wariness, and smiled.



CHAPTER XXIX

THE LAST CARD

He worked with surprising rapidity, tearing from the machine and passing to Braceway each half-page as he finished it. He wrote triple-space, breaking the story into many paragraphs, never hesitating for a choice of words.

"My name is Thomas F. Splain.

"I am forty years old.

"I am 'wanted' in New York for embezzlement.

"Fear is an unknown quantity to me. I have always had ample self-confidence. The world belongs to the impudent.

"I learned long ago that no man is at heart either grateful, or honest, or unselfish."

With a turn of the roller, he flicked that off the machine and, without raising his head, passed it to Braceway. The detective glanced at it long enough to get its meaning and handed it to Fulton. When it was offered to Greenleaf, he shook his head.

The chiefs rage had reached its high point. To his realization of how perfectly he had been duped, there was added the humiliation of having two members of his force as witnesses of its revelation.

"If he makes a move," he thought savagely, fingering the revolver in the side pocket of his coat, "I'll kill him certain."

The man at the machine wrote on:

"After leaving New York, I was caught in a street accident in Chicago, suffering a broken nose. Thanks to my physicians—an incompetent lot, these doctors—I emerged with a crooked nose.

"That was a help. I then had all my teeth extracted. Knowing dentistry, I saw the possibilities of disguise by wearing differently shaped sets of teeth.

"Note my heavily protruding lower lip—and, at rare intervals, my hollow cheeks.

"Also, there's your gold-tooth mystery—solved!

"As a disguise, the gold tooth is admirable. I mean a solid, complete tooth of gold, garish in the front part of the mouth.

"It unfailingly changes the expression; frequently, it degrades and brutalizes the face. Try it.

"Using my crooked nose as an every-day precaution, I always straightened it for night work. Forestier taught me that—great man, Forestier; marvellous with noses.

"He is now piling up a fortune as make-up specialist for motion pictures in Los Angeles—has a secret preparation with which he 'builds' new noses.

"Changing the colour of my eyes was something beyond the police imagination.

"I got the trick from a man in Cincinnati—another great character. Homatropine is the basic element of his preparation.

"Some day women will hear of it and maake him rich. He deserves it."

Fulton, after he had read that, looked at Braceway out of tortured eyes. This turning of his tragedy into jest defied his strength.

"That's enough of that," Braceway raised his voice above the clatter of the typewriter. "Get down to the crime, or stop!"

"By all means," Bristow assented.

Flicking from the roller the page he had already begun, he tore it up and inserted another.

"I met Enid Fulton six years ago at Hot Springs, Virginia. She fell in love with me.

"I had always known that a rich woman's indiscretions could be made to yield big dividends. She was a victim of her——"

Braceway's grasp caught the writer's hands.

"Eliminate that!" he ordered sternly. "It's not necessary."

Bristow, imperturbable, his motions quick and sure, tore up that page also, and started afresh:

"Later she believed I had embezzled in order to assure her ease and luxury from the date of our marriage.

"Her exaggerated sense of fair play, of obligation, was an aid to my representations of the situation.

"Although she no longer loved me and did love Withers, my hold on her, rather on her purse, could not be broken.

"She gave me the money in Atlantic City and Washington. I played the market, and lost. I no longer had my cunning in dealing with stocks.

"I came here as soon as I had learned of her presence in Furmville. At first, she was reasonable. Abrahamson knows that. I pawned several little things with him.

"At last she grew obstinate. She argued that, if she pawned any more of her jewels, she would be unable to redeem them because her father had failed in business.

"But I had to have funds. Several times I pointed this out to her when I saw her in Number Five—always after midnight, for my own protection as well as hers.

"Finally, my patience was exhausted. Last Monday night, or early Tuesday morning, I told her so, quite clearly.

"She argued, plead with me. All this was in whispers. The necessity of whispering so long irritated me.

"Her refusal, flat and final, to part with the jewels enraged me. It was then that I made the first big mistake of my life.

"I lost my temper. Men who can not control their tempers under the most trying circumstances should let crime alone. They will fail.

"I killed her—a foolish result of the folly of yielding to my rage.

"Standing there and looking at her, I pondered, with all the clarity I could command. In a second, I perceived the advisability of throwing the blame upon some other person."

The faces of Braceway and Fulton mirrored to the others the horror of the stuff they were reading. The scene taxed the emotional balance of all of them. The evil-faced man at the typewriter, the father getting by degrees the description of his daughter's death, the policemen waiting to put the murderer behind bars——

Abrahamson, peculiarly wrought upon by the tenseness of it all, wished he had not come. His back felt creepy. He lit a cigarette, puffed it to a torch and threw it down.

Bristow wrote on:

"Mechanically, my fingers went to a pocket in my vest and played with two metal buttons I had picked up in my kitchen the day before, Monday.

"I knew the buttons had come from the overalls of the negro, Perry Carpenter. It would be easy to drop one there, the other on the floor of my kitchen, where I had originally found them.

"That would be the beginning of identifying him as the murderer. He had been half-drunk the day before.

"The rest was simple—dropping the lavalliere links back of Number Five, placing the lavalliere in the yard of his house, and so on.

"I had one piece of luck which, of course, I did not count on when I first adopted this simple course. That was when Greenleaf asked me to help him in finding the murderer. A confiding soul-your Greenleaf—and insured by nature against brain storms.

"Such a turn was a godsend. I had become the investigator of my own crime.

"There remains to be told only the fact that I made a second trip to Number Five.

"Having come back here in safety, I perceived I had left there without the jewels she was wearing and without those in her jewel cabinet.

"She had brought this cabinet into the living room to show me how her supply of jewelry had been depleted.

"To murder and not get the fruits of it, is like picking one's own pocket. I returned immediately and rectified the mistake.

"Before departing this last time, I switched on the lights to assure myself that I had left only the clue to the negro's presence, none to my own.

"That explains Withers' story of his struggle at the foot of the steps. We really had it.

"In the ordinary course of events, the negro would have gone to the chair.

"But there were complications I did not foresee.

"Morley's theft and clamour for money from Miss Fulton, Withers' jealousy, and my own extra precaution of appearing with beard and gold tooth in the Brevord Hotel, so as to shift suspicion to a mysterious 'unknown' in case of necessity; all these things left too many clues, presented an embarrassment of riches.

"If I had known of them in advance, either Morley or Withers would have paid the penalty for the crime. The negro would never have received my attention.

"I have no game leg, never have had. The brace made it easy for me to transform myself into an agile, powerful man in my 'private' work.

"I have no tuberculosis, never have had. I have a normally flat chest. Sluggish veins and capillaries in my face, caused by my having suffered pathological blushing for ten years, cause a permanent flush in my cheeks.

"That was enough to fool the physicians. Besides, when the Galenites have once diagnosed your purse favourably, your disease is what you please.

"I have said my first great mistake was losing my temper with Enid Withers.

"My second was my laughter in the cab the night Braceway and I questioned Morley. I knew he was holding back something, but I never dreamed it was his knowledge of my having done the murder.

"That laugh was suicidal, for it was the disarming of myself by myself.

"But for the albino discovery by Braceway, my conviction would have been impossible. The case against Perry was too strong.

"Still, it is as well this way as another. I should never have served the time for embezzlement. A free life is a fine thing. I suspect that death, perhaps, is even finer."

He handed the last page to Braceway, leaned back in his chair, put up his arms and yawned. The glance with which he swept the faces of those before him was arrogant. It had a sinister audacity.

"The confession's complete," Braceway told Greenleaf, clipping his words short. "Take him away. No—wait!" He pulled a pen from his pocket and turned to the prisoner.

"Oh, the signature," Bristow said coolly. "I forgot that."

He took the typewritten pages roughly from Fulton, and in a bold, free hand wrote at the bottom of each: "Thomas F. Splain."

"I'm ready," he announced, rising from his chair so that he jostled Fulton unnecessarily.

The old man, his self-control broken at last, struck him with open hand full in the face. His fingers left three red stripes across the murderer's white cheek.

Before Braceway could interfere, Bristow checked his impulse to strike back and gave Fulton a long, level look.

"You're welcome to it," he said finally; "welcome, old man. I guess I still owe you something, at that."

"Put the cuffs on him," ordered Greenleaf.

"First, though, I'd like to have a clean collar, some clean linen; and I want to get rid of this brace," Bristow interrupted.

"To hell with what you want!" Greenleaf cried, a shade more purple with rage.

Bristow turned to Braceway:

"You're right. The stuff's in the sole of this shoe."

"Let's take charge of that now," Braceway said to the chief. They each grasped one of the prisoner's arms and hustled him with scant ceremony to his bedroom. Bristow removed his trousers and, unbuckling the belt and straps of the steel brace, took off the thick-soled shoe.

Greenleaf put his hand into it and tugged at the inner sole.

"Opens on the outside," prompted Braceway, "underneath, near the instep."

The chief, after fumbling with it a moment, got it open. The jewels streamed to the floor, a little cascade of radiance and colour. He picked them up, getting down on all-fours so as not to miss one.

"Don't be unreasonable," Bristow complained as he slipped on another shoe. "Let me have a clean shirt and collar."

"Be quick about it," Braceway consented, his voice heavy with contempt.

Greenleaf, holding him again by one arm, shoved him toward the bureau. He got out of his shirt, Greenleaf shifting his grasp so as not to let go of him for a second. In trying to put the front collar button into the fresh shirt, he broke off its head.

"Come on," growled the chief. "You don't need a collar anyway."

"Not so fast! I've more than one collar button."

He put his hand into a tray and picked up another. It had a long shank and was easily manipulated because of the catch that permitted the movement of its head, as if on a hinge.

"This is better," he said, fingering it, unhurried as a man with hours to throw away.

"Get a move on! Get a move!" Greenleaf growled again, tightening his hold until it was painful.

Bristow, apparently bent on throwing off this rough grasp on his left arm, swiftly raised his right hand with the button to his mouth.

For the fraction of a second his eyes, bright and defiant, met Braceway's. The detective, reading the elation in them, shouted:

"Look out!"

There was a click. And Bristow flung away the button as Braceway caught at his hand.

"I beat you after——" he tried to boast.

But the poison, quicker than he had thought, cut short his utterance. His eyelids flickered twice. He collapsed against Greenleaf and slid, crumpled, to the floor.

"Cyanide," said Braceway. "He had it in the shank of that collar button."

Greenleaf bent over him.

"God, it's quick!" he announced. "He's dead."

THE END