saw the scratches on Mrs. Withers' hand, didn't you?" said Bristow.
"Yes."
"Well, if Perry did the scratching, we can prove it. Any good laboratory man can tell us whether the stuff that was under his nails contains particles of the human skin, the epidermis. If those particles are found, the case is settled, it seems to me."
"By cracky!" exclaimed Greenleaf, his admiration of his assistant growing. "You've solved the problem—gone to the very bottom of it."
"What did Perry have to say? What was his story?"
"Oh, it amounted to nothing. Said he wasn't near Number Five; said he was drunk last night and thought he was at the house of this Lucy Thomas all the time."
"Then, the proof rests upon what the laboratory analysis of the finger nail stuff shows. When can we get that report?"
Bristow was a little surprised by the embarrassment Greenleaf showed before answering:
"We can get it tomorrow—by wire."
"Why can't we get it tonight—or tomorrow at the latest? The Davis laboratory here can do the work. It does laboratory work for all these doctors here."
"It can't do any work for me," objected Greenleaf stubbornly. "Dr. Davis and I aren't on speaking terms, personally or politically. I'll send the stuff down to a laboratory at Charlotte. It will reach there tomorrow morning if I get it off on the midnight train. We can get the telegraphed report on it late tomorrow or the day after."
"All right; I guess that will do," agreed Bristow.
As they started up the steps to the Fulton bungalow, Morley came out to the porch and charged down toward them. His face was convulsed as if by anger or fear. He did not seem to see the two men. Bristow caught him by the arm and put the query:
"Where are you going, Mr. Morley?"
Morley shook off his hand and answered curtly:
"To Washington. I've barely got time to catch my train."
"Don't hurry," Bristow said with a touch of sarcasm. "You're too good at missing trains anyway. Besides, we want to know what you did between midnight and two-ten this morning, and why you failed to tell us this morning that you didn't register at the Brevord until after two."
Morley's face went white.
"There wasn't anything to that," he explained. "I didn't mean to conceal anything. I didn't go anywhere—anywhere specially."
"Where did you go?" insisted Bristow.
"I took a walk. That was all. I didn't feel like sleeping."
"Did you see anybody while you were walking?"
"Not that I remember. Why?"
"Because, if you did, it might be advisable for you to remember. It may become necessary for you to prove an alibi."
"Oh, that!" the young man said with a nervous laugh.
"Yes. Can't you tell us where you went?"
"I wandered around, up and down the down-town streets. That was all."
"Well, remember," Bristow cautioned him. "If you can produce two or three people who saw you down there, it may help you a whole lot."
"Oh, that's all right, I haven't done anything against the law. The idea's absurd."
"Mr. Bristow's right," Greenleaf put in. "We'll have to know more about how you spent those two hours. Really, we will. If you try to leave town, you'll be arrested. My men have their orders."
Greenleaf had forgotten about the ring found in the young man's hotel room, but Bristow hadn't.
Morley went slowly down Manniston Road. There was a cold moisture upon his forehead.
Chapter VII.
Miss Fulton Is Hysterical
The chief and his assistant were received by Miss Kelly, the trained nurse. Bristow wasted no time in what he considered to be the crucial search for more evidence. In speaking to her he exercised all his persuasiveness, all the suggestion of power and authority that he could force into his voice and expression. And yet, he gave her, as he had given Mrs. Allen, the impression that he deferred to her and prized her opinions.
"Isn't there something you can tell us?" he asked, holding her glance with his own.
"What do you mean?"
She was a strong, capable-looking woman of twenty-six years or so.
"Like every good citizen," he answered smoothly, "you want exactly what we want, a clearing up of all this muddle. I thought, perhaps, there might be something you'd heard or seen. Isn't there?"
"No; nothing, sir," she returned, true to her professional teaching that a nurse is forbidden to reveal the secrets of the sickroom.
"You'll be called as a witness at the inquest," he hazarded, and was rewarded by a look of uncertainty in her eyes. "Your duty to the law is above everything else," he added.
"I've heard Miss Fulton say only one thing," she admitted reluctantly. "She's said it several times while under the influence of the sedatives she's had."
"What was it?"
"Nothing that made any sense. It was, 'When he—say—I—asleep.' There were long pauses between each of the words. She said it four or five times. But she hasn't said anything since she waked up."
"How long has she been awake?"
"About fifteen minutes. Mr. Morley saw her five minutes ago, but he wasn't in there more than a minute or two."
"Morley's seen her a second time!"
"Yes; but each time she hasn't wanted to talk to him. The truth is, she drove him out of the room."
"You didn't hear what they said?"
Miss Kelly drew herself up indignantly.
"I wasn't in the room," she said coldly. "Of course, I didn't hear."
Bristow apologized for the implication that she had overheard intentionally.
When he and Greenleaf were shown into Miss Fulton's room, he had made up his mind in lightning-like manner that what she had said in her delirium, meant: "When he (her father or the police) asks me about last night, I shall say I was asleep all night." It came to him like an intuition, without his even trying to reason it out; and he decided to act on it.
They found Maria Fulton propped up against pillows in the bed. Although her pupils were still enlarged by the sedatives she had had, she was plainly labouring under the
