the negro—incriminated, probably, by the buttons from his overalls jacket; by the ease with which he could have obtained from Lucy Thomas the kitchen key to No. 5; by the possible motive of robbery; and by the brutal means, choking, employed to inflict death.
Morley—incriminated by his unknown whereabouts during the two hours following his missing the midnight train, and by the discovery of the ring (possibly Mrs. Withers') in his room at the Brevord.
Withers—involved by the probable motive of jealousy and rage, and by his secret trip to Furmville.
Maria Fulton—well, he would see.
"Just now," he concluded in his own mind, "it looks worse for the negro than anybody else. There's one thing certain: the man against whom the most evidence rests by the time they have the inquest tomorrow will be the one held for the action of the grand jury. That's the thing to do—get the one who seems most probably guilty."
He thought of Douglas Campbell and immediately dismissed him as a possibility in the list of probable murderers. The young real estate dealer had been completely exonerated by the statement of the dead woman's husband; that, upon bringing her back to the bungalow, he had at once said good night to her and gone home.
Nor did he puzzle his mind about the unknown individual with the gold tooth, he who had appeared in Abrahamson's pawnshop and a few minutes later miraculously disappeared. If the ring pawned had belonged to Mrs. Withers, why should this man return to No. 5 and murder her? If he had obtained nothing from her beforehand, he might have had a real motive for the crime. But, since he had already got the ring, it seemed folly to assume that he would later kill her.
In spite of his growing belief that the onus of proof must fall upon the negro, Bristow could not keep his thoughts away from young Morley. He, more than any of the other suspects, had told an unsatisfactory story. Besides, he had a bad face.
The latest addition to the Furmville plain-clothes squad remembered how carefully Morley's hands had been manicured. He——
With a quick motion, he went to the telephone and called for Greenleaf.
"Chief, are you still holding Perry?"
"Sure, I'm holding him. I'll continue to hold him for some time, I'm thinking. His story don't suit me. He says——"
"All right. Ill get that from you when I see you this afternoon. In the meantime, I wish you'd have his finger nails carefully cleaned. I want——"
But the request had instantly overwhelmed Greenleaf.
"What!" he yelled. "Clean his finger nails!"
"Yes," Bristow continued smoothly, disregarding the other's evident distaste and surprise. "If I were down there, I'd do it myself. In fact, it would be better for you to do it. Don't leave it to some careless subordinate."
The chief laughed his sarcasm.
"You know," this still with laughter, "we Southerners are none too strong on acting as manicures to these coloured folks."
"It's absolutely necessary," was the insistent answer. "And, when you do clean them, save every bit of dirt thus obtained. Now, will you do it?"
"Why, yes," Greenleaf assented with reluctance. "If you say it's absolutely necessary, I'll do it—I'll do it myself."
"Good. I'll depend on you for it. By the way, can't you have somebody, your man Jenkins or some one as good as he is, go out on a real hunt for the fellow with the gold tooth? You remember Withers' description of him?"
"Yes. I'd thought of that."
"That's good. If he can't spot him at any of the hotels, have him make the rounds of the boarding houses. I think you'd like to get your hands on a customer as slippery as Withers says that man is."
"I'll send Jenkins at once," the chief took his directions in good part.
"Good again. By the way, you'll be up here at four?"
"No; five. Dr. Braley told me we'd have to wait until then; said we'd better. He wants her to get that extra hour's sleep."
Bristow started to say something further, hesitated and then hung up the receiver with a word of assent.
Mattie had come in to clear off the table.
"Go down to Number Six," he told her, "and ask Mrs. Allen if she will be so kind as to come up here at her earliest convenience. Explain to her that it's against the doctor's orders for me to leave this house, and that the excitement of this morning has tired me out."
Mrs. Allen appeared in less than a quarter of an hour. He received her in the living room and introduced himself, apologizing for not having been able to call on her. She understood perfectly, she said.
She was a woman about forty years of age, her face a little thin and worn, a good deal of gray in her dark hair. She had been nursing her husband for two years, and the strain had begun to tell. Nevertheless, he soon saw that she was a woman of refinement, possessed of a keen intelligence.
"I wish," he requested, after he had explained his connection with the murder, "you'd tell me all you know about these sisters. I gathered this morning that you were well acquainted with them."
He had always found it easy to gain the confidence of women. They liked his manners, his air of deference, his manifest interest in everything they said.
"I can't say that I've been intimate with them," Mrs. Allen explained in her soft, pleasing voice; "but Mrs. Withers and I knew each other pretty well. She came over to my house quite frequently, and I was in the habit of running in to see her."
"Don't you know the other, Miss Fulton, equally well?"
"No. You see, she was always in, or on, the bed, and she never seemed to want to talk. Besides, she was different from Mrs. Withers—not so bright and attractive, and not so neighbourly."
"Mrs. Withers was always a laughing, sparkling sort of a person, wasn't she?"
"She gave that impression to some people," Mrs. Allen answered thoughtfully, "but not to me. It was her nature to be free and happy. Most of the time she seemed that way. But there were other times when I could see that she had something weighing on her mind, something depressing her."
"Ah!" Bristow said with deeper interest. "That's just what we want to find out about."
Mrs. Allen sat silent for a moment pursing her lips.
Bristow let her reflect.
"I don't think," she said at last, "Mrs. Withers ever was in fear of anybody or any thing. She wasn't that kind."
"Did she ever tell you anything to make you think that she wasn't happy?"
"I was trying to recall just what it was. Once, I remember, when she was sitting out on the sleeping porch—she sometimes came out there to talk to my husband, who is always in bed—we had been discussing the care with which every woman had to live her life.
"'Women are like politicians,' Mr. Allen said. 'They can't afford to have a dark
