the worst of his affair, as I'd read it in the diaries,
winding up,

"Plain what brought you there. Quarrel? Motive? Don't need to look any
further."

Before I was done Jim Edwards had groped over to a chair and slumped
into it. A queer, toneless voice asked,

"Worth sent you to me--a detective--with this?"

"No," I said. "I'm acting on my own."

"And against his will," it came back instantly.

"What of it?" I demanded. "Are you the coward to take advantage of his
sense of honor?--to let his generosity cost him his life?"

"His life." That landed. Watching, I saw the struggle that tore him. He
jumped up and started toward me; I hadn't much doubt that I was now
going to hear a plea for mercy--a confession, of sorts--as he stopped,
dropped his head, and stood scowling at the floor.

"Talk," I said. "Spill it. Now's your time."

He raised his eyes to mine and spoke suddenly.

"Boyne--I have nothing to say."

"And Worth Gilbert can hang and be damned to him--is that it?" I took
another step toward him. "No, Edwards, that 'nothing to say' stuff won't
go in a court of law. It won't get you anywhere."

"They'll never in the world--try Worth for--that killing."

"I'm expecting his arrest any hour."

"A trial! Those cursed diaries of Tom's brought into court--My God! I
believe if I'd known he'd written things like that, I could have killed
him for it!"

I stared. He had forgotten me. But at this speech I mentally dropped him
for the moment, and fastened my suspicions on the woman who went with
him to the study.

"All right," I said brutally. "You didn't kill Thomas Gilbert. But you
took Mrs. Bowman to the study that night to have it out with him, and
get six pages from the 1916 book. She got 'em--and you know what she had
to do to get 'em."

"Hold on, Boyne!" he said sternly. "Don't you talk like that to me."

"Well," I said, "Mrs. Bowman was there--after those diary leaves. I
heard Barbara Wallace imitate her voice--and Chung recognized the
imitation. You know--that night at the study--the first night."

He took a bewildered moment or two for thought, then broke out,

"It wasn't Laura's voice Barbara imitated. Did she say so?"

"No, but she imitated the voice of a woman who came weeping to get those
pages from the diary; and who else would that be? Who else would want
them?"

"You're off the track, Boyne," he drew a great, shuddering sigh of
relief. "Tom was always playing the tyrant to those about h