father--and it was murder, Mr. Knox--whoever did it
is going free to save a scandal. All my--friends"--she smiled
bitterly--"are afraid of the same thing. But I can not sit quiet and
think nothing can be done. I _must_ know, and you are the only one who
seems willing to try to find out."

So it was, that, when I left the house a half hour later, I was
committed. I had been commissioned by the girl I loved--for it had come
to that--to clear her lover of her father's murder, and so give him back
to her--not in so many words, but I was to follow up the crime, and the
rest followed. And I was morally certain of two things--first, that her
lover was not worthy of her, and second, and more to the point, that
innocent or guilty, he was indirectly implicated in the crime.

I had promised her also to see Miss Letitia that day if I could, and I
turned over the events of the preceding night as I walked toward the
station, but I made nothing of them. One thing occurred to me, however.
Bella had told Margery that I had been up all night. Could Bella--? But
I dismissed the thought as absurd--Bella, who had scuttled to bed in a
panic of fright, would never have dared the lower floor alone, and
Bella, given all the courage in the world, could never have moved with
the swiftness and light certainty of my midnight prowler. It had not
been Bella.

But after all I did not go to Bellwood. I met Hunter on my way to the
station, and he turned around and walked with me.

"So you've lain down on the case!" I said, when we had gone a few steps
without speaking.

He grumbled something unintelligible and probably unrepeatable.

"Of course," I persisted, "being a simple and uncomplicated case of
suicide, there was nothing in it anyhow. If it had been a murder, under
peculiar circumstances--"

He stopped and gripped my arm.

"For ten cents," he said gravely, "I would tell the chief and a few
others what I think of them. And then I'd go out and get full."

"Not on ten cents!"

"I'm going out of the business," he stormed. "I'm going to drive a
garbage wagon: it's cleaner than this job. Suicide! I never saw a
cleaner case of--" He stopped suddenly. "Do you know Burton--of the
_Times-Post_?"

"No: I've heard of him."

"Well, he's your man. They're dead against the ring, and Burton's been
given the case. He's as sharp as a steel trap. You two get together."

He paused at a corner. "Good-by," he said dejectedly. "I'm off to hunt
some boys