s father to take his own life."

"That's my business here," I nodded. And when he looked his surprise,
"To stop such stories."

He stared at me, frankly puzzled for a moment, then said,

"Well, of course you know, and I know, that they're scurrilous lies; but
just how will you stop them?"

I had intended my remark to stand as it was; but Worth filled in the
pause after Vandeman's question with,

"Jerry's here to get the truth of my father's murder, Bronse."

"Murder?" The mere naked word seemed to shock Vandeman. His sort clothe
and pad everything--even their speech. "I didn't know any one
entertained the idea your father was murdered. He couldn't have
been--not the way it happened."

"Nevertheless we think he was."

"Oh, but Boyne--start a thing like that, and think of the talk it'll
make! They'll commence at once saying that there was nobody but Worth to
profit by his father's death."

"Don't worry, Mr. Vandeman." He made me hot. "We know where to dig up
the motive for the crime."

"You mean the diaries?" Worth's voice sounded unbelievably from beside
me. "Nothing doing there, Jerry. I've burned them."

I sat and choked down the swears. Yet, looking back on it, I saw plainly
that Jerry Boyne was the man who deserved kicking. I ought never to have
left them with him.

"You read them and burned them?" said Vandeman.

"Burned them without reading," Worth's impatient tones corrected.

"Without reading!" the other echoed, startled. Then, after a long pause,
"Oh--I say--pardon me, but--but ought that to have been done? Surely
not. Worth--if you'd read your father's diaries for the past few
years--I don't believe you'd have a doubt that he committed suicide--not
a doubt."

Worth sat there mute. Myself, I was rather curious as to what Vandeman
would say; I had read much in those diaries. But when it came, it was
the same old line of talk one hears when there's a suicide: Gilbert was
a lonely man; his life hadn't been happy; he cut himself off from people
too much. Vandeman said that of late he believed he was pretty nearly
the only intimate the dead man had. This last gave him an interest in
my eyes. I broke in on his generalities to ask him bluntly why he was so
certain the death was suicide.

"Mr. Gilbert was breaking up; had been for two years or more. Worth's
been away; he's not seen it; but I can tell you, Boyne, his father's
mind was affected."

Worth let that pass, though I could see he wasn't con