"The journals, the
police, the detectives, and our own private searches have failed
to locate any suspicion, however fleeting.

"It only remains for us, while awaiting some unravelling of the
mystery, to unite in the fitting burial of the unfortunate gentleman,
when the Coroner has finished his dreary labors. He had not a
single enemy in the world! It was the fatal trust of the vast money
handling which caused his murder. And only after long plotting and
careful daily watch was he foully done to death."

Alice Worthington's clear voice startled each listener as she said,
"There is but one faint clue clinging to the past. A transaction
which might have drawn upon him the vengeance of some one. I have
kept this secret until all else failed.

"Before my father's death, even in those last hours of lingering
agony, he signed a deed as trustee for Everett Clayton, which
transfers to Randall Clayton one-half of the Detroit Depot lands,
or one-half of its purchase price. This money, nearly a million
dollars, goes now into the estate of the dead man!"

"My God!" whispered Witherspoon, as Doctor Atwater grasped both
his hands. "If any one had an interest in concealing that vast
property, we must look for them, for the plot which led to Clayton's
murder. My poor father pledged me to secrecy until I had delivered
the deed and the legal acknowledgment of his property interest to
Clayton. It was for this that my father wished to meet Randall at
Cheyenne--to tell him of the fortune which had come to him!"

The girl's sobbing voice touched every heart as she faltered,
"Judge Downs, at Pasco, drew all the papers and acknowledgments,
and, after my father's death, he explained all the details to
me. But father," she cried, with a gust of stormy tears, "told me
himself of the discovery of the value of this property, and that
he had feared to arouse poor Randall's hopes until the Railway
Company had purchased the land."

Her voice died away; its accent of truth had brought the astounded
lawyers to their feet; but in a corner Doctor Atwater whispered to
Jack Witherspoon, who was shaking as a leaf in a storm.

"Silence, my friend," he murmured. "This makes you a millionaire.
Say nothing to-night. Confide only in Alice. You and I must tell
her, alone, and later, of Clayton's will. If Ferris knew of this,
he is the murderer."

The grave voice of Boardman alone broke the silence. "This is matter
of the gravest moment, and only