nt with him into the shop he had pointed out and bought me
a gossamer, for which he paid. When he had helped me to put it on and
had tied my veil well over my face, he seemed more at his ease and gave
me his arm quite cheerfully.

"'Now,' said he, 'you look well, but how about the time when you will
have to take the gossamer off? I tell you what it is, my dear, you will
have to refit yourself entirely before I shall be satisfied.' And again
I saw him cast about him that furtive and inquiring look which would
have awakened more surprise in me than it did had I known that we were
in a part of the city where he ran but little chance of meeting any one
he knew.

"'This old duster I have on,' he suddenly laughed, 'is a very
appropriate companion to your gossamer,' and though I did not agree with
him, for my clothes were new, and his old and shabby, I laughed also and
never dreamed of evil.

"As this garment which so disfigured him that morning has been the
occasion of much false speculation on the part of those whose business
it was to inquire into the crime with which it is in a most unhappy way
connected, I may as well explain here and now why so fastidious a
gentleman as Randolph Stone came to wear it. The gentleman called Howard
Van Burnam was not the only person who visited the Van Burnam offices on
the morning preceding the murder. Randolph Stone was there also, but he
did not see the brothers, for finding them closeted together, he decided
not to interrupt them. As he was a frequent visitor there, his presence
created no remark nor was his departure noted. Descending the stairs
separating the offices from the street, he was about to leave the
building, when he noticed that the clouds looked ominous. Being dressed
for a luncheon with Miss Althorpe, he felt averse to getting wet, so he
stepped back into the adjoining hall and began groping for an umbrella
in a little closet under the stairs where he had once before found such
an article. While doing this he heard the younger Van Burnam descend and
go out, and realizing that he could now see Franklin without difficulty,
he was about to return up-stairs when he heard that gentleman also come
down and follow his brother into the street.

"His first impulse was to join him, but finding nothing but an old
duster in the closet, he gave up this intention, and putting on this
shabby but protecting garment, started for his apartments, little
realizing into what a course of d