lues, no arrests. That was all. But was it not enough? To Orr,
while excessive it was also incredible. Mechanically he read the
account again. On his way uptown he bought other papers, less colorful
but equally clear. Loftus had been identified. There was no mistake.

But the incredibility of it persisted. A man young, rich, handsome,
without apparently an enemy in the world or an idea in his head, to be
done for like that was a matter which Orr could not immediately
digest.

He tried, however. In the effort he reached his house. There a
telephone message awaited him. It asked would he please come to Irving
Place. Presumably it concerned the murder. He went at once.

In the sombre parlor Sylvia stood.

"You know, I suppose," he began. Seeing that she did he added, "It is
very odd."

Sylvia interrupted him. "There is worse."

"How worse? What do you mean?"

"Fanny was going to run off with him."

"With Loftus?"

Sylvia nodded. Her face, always pale, now was white.

"But," Orr expostulated, "you don't fancy that Annandale----?"

"No." The monosyllable fell longly from the girl. "No," she repeated.
"But others may."

"I don't see why. There is nothing to go on. Is there though?"

Sylvia did not directly reply. She looked down at her hands and then
at her cousin. "I think," she presently said, "that he must have
learned of it last evening after we went away. At dinner I am sure he
had no suspicions."

"Had you any?"

Sylvia raised her eyebrows. "I don't know," she remarked, "whether
when you were going from here you noticed him particularly, but in the
hall he had told her that he would shoot him."

Orr sniffed. "That is rather awkward."

"Then almost at once he went. But where?"

"Have you heard from him since?"

"No, and it is for that reason I sent for you. Won't you go to him and
let me know?"

But Orr did not like the errand. It seemed to him that Annandale might
be the man. "That, too, is rather awkward," he objected.

Against the objection Sylvia pleaded. Manifestly she was nervous. "If
you won't go," she said at last, "I shall."

"Oh, well, if you put it in that way," Orr reluctantly replied, "I
suppose I must."

"And you will come back?"

"As quickly as I can."

There is a line of Hugo descriptive of the earnestness with which
people gape at a wall behind which something has occurred. Orr
recalled it when he reached Gramercy Park. At one end of the park was
a great crowd staring a