ested that one
assume the blame and go away. I am telling you all this in confidence as
a friend of my friends, the Bentleys, and a young man whom I like and
trust despite your momentary madness in the matter of yellow locks--we
are all susceptible.

"Kendrick went. For seven years he stayed away, in an impossible tropic
town, believing himself sought by the law, for so Hayden wrote him. Not
long ago he discovered that the matter in which he and Hayden had
offended had never been disclosed after all. He hurried back to the
states. You can imagine his bitterness. He had been engaged to Myra
Thornhill, and the fact that Hayden was also in love with her may have
had something to do with his treachery to his friend."

Magee's eyes strayed to where the two victims of the dead man's
falsehood whispered together in the shadows, and he wondered at the
calmness with which Kendrick had greeted Hayden in the room above.

"When Kendrick arrived," Professor Bolton went on, "first of all he
consulted his old friend Drayton. Drayton informed him that he had
nothing to fear should his misstep be made public, for in reality there
was, at this late day, no crime committed in the eyes of the law. He
also told Kendrick how matters stood, and of the net he was spreading
for Hayden. He had some fears, he said, about sending a man of my years
alone to Baldpate Inn. Kendrick begged for the chance to come, too. So,
without making his return known in Reuton, three nights ago he
accompanied me here. Three nights--it seems years. I had secured keys
for us both from John Bentley. As we climbed the mountain, I noticed
your light, and we agreed it would be best if only one of us revealed
ourselves to the intruders in the inn. So Kendrick let himself in by a
side door while I engaged you and Bland in the office. He spent the
night on the third floor. In the morning I told the whole affair to
Quimby, knowing his interest in both Hayden and Kendrick, and secured
for Kendrick the key to the annex. Almost as soon as I arrived--"

"The curtain went up on the melodrama," suggested Mr. Magee.

"You state it vividly and with truth," Professor Bolton replied. "Night
before last the ordinance numbered 45 was due to pass the council. It
was arranged that when it did, Hayden, through his man Rutter, or
personally, would telephone the combination of the safe to the mayor of
Reuton. Cargan and Bland sat in the office watching for the flash of
light at the tele