happenings on those dates;
but the ink that was used in marking out a run-over on the next
following page was fresh. Anyhow, Mr. Vandeman, we know that a woman
came weeping to Mr. Gilbert on the very night of his death, only a short
time before his death--as nearly as medical science can determine
that--and we believe that she came after those leaves out of the diary,
and got them--whatever she had to do to secure them."

I was struck with the difference in the way these two men took inquiry.
Edwards had writhed, changed color, started to speak and caught himself
back, showed all the agony of a clumsy criminal who dreads the probing
that may give him away: temperament; the rotten spot in his affairs.
Vandeman, younger, not entangled with an unhappy married woman, sat
looking me in the eye, still smiling. The blow I had to deal him would
be harder. It concerned his bride; but he'd take punishment well. I
proceeded to let him have it.

"I can see that Mr. Edwards has an idea what the entries on those pages
covered. He has inadvertently shown me that your wife was the woman who
came and got them from Thomas Gilbert on the night he was murdered."

At that he turned on Edwards, and Edwards answered the look with,

"I didn't. On my honor, Bronse, I never mentioned your name or Ina's.
The Chinaman told him that--about some woman coming that evening--"

"Mr. Vandeman," I broke in, "there's no use beating about the bush.
Chung recognized your wife's voice. She was the woman who came weeping
to get those diary leaves."

He took that with astonishing quietness, and,

"Suppose you were shown that she wasn't out of her mother's house?"

"Wouldn't stop me. Allow that her alibi's perfect. Yet you men have
something. There's something here I ought to know."

"Something you'll never find out from me," Jim Edwards' deep voice was
full of defiance. "Bronse, I owe you an apology; but you can depend on
me to keep my mouth shut."

After a minute's consideration Vandeman said,

"I don't know why we should any of us keep our mouths shut."

Jim Edwards looked utterly bewildered as the man sat there, thinking the
thing over, glanced up pleasantly at me and suggested,

"Edwards has a little different slant on this from me. I don't know why
I shouldn't state to you exactly what happened--right there in Gilbert's
study on the date you mentioned."

"Oh, there did something unusual happen; and you've just remembered it."

"There did