e murder--but found
absolutely nothing that was not already familiar to me. It was
miserably aggravating that every search I undertook in this house of
mystery should prove fruitless. Yet, we could find nothing whatever to
serve as a reply to Stodger's pertinent question.

It was before the bath room door that Felix Page had met his death; it
was the bath room that had been designated on the chart found by me in
the snow; it was to this point that both Alexander Burke and Alfred
Fluette had turned with a glance of ardent eagerness; it was to the
bath room that Genevieve had pursued the mysterious yellow face--always
the bath room. It would seem to be the converging point of the
tragedy's every moving current.

We were about to give it up in despair, when I started forward with a
wordless cry. _The bar of yellow soap was gone!_

On the instant the import of this discovery flashed into my mind. How
blind and dull I had been!

During the struggle Tuesday night, between Page and--shall I say
Fluette?--in the hall, Burke had in some way secured the ruby, and with
diabolical cleverness _had pressed it into the bar of soap_! A bit of
manipulation under the water-tap had removed all traces. Think of the
brain that could light upon a hiding-place like that in the stress of
such a moment! And I had paused by that very bar of soap,
philosophizing and moralizing--it made me sick to think of it. No
wonder they were all so interested in the bath room!

This revelation left my mind blank for a second. Then came a rush of
mingled feelings--bitter chagrin and disappointment, mortification
because I had been outwitted, and a blind, hot resentment against those
who had bested me.

Recalling the object I had heard drop to the floor at the moment I
dashed the door open, I dropped to my hands and knees and began a
feverish search for some sign. Yes, there it was--a small smear of
soap, where the bar had struck.

For a while Stodger thought I was crazy, and perhaps I was. I fumed
and raved at him for not entering into the search with a frenzied zeal
equal to mine. At last he too understood.

But our pawing over the floor and the stairs, and even in the snow
outdoors, availed nothing. We were beaten, confounded, made a
laughing-stock.

The bar of soap was gone.

CHAPTER XIX

BELLE

It was a very crestfallen detective that presented himself at the
Fluette home early Friday morning. I had counted so much upo