roceeded, shaking some
raindrops from the rim of his hat. "I suppose you've heard the news."

Ashton-Kirk carefully lighted the tip of a blunt cigar.

"What news?" he asked.

The heavy shoulders of the headquarters man twitched with pleasure; he
saw, in this answer, the evasion of a defeated man.

"Why," said he, with an effort to keep the triumph out of his voice,
"the confession of Frank Burton."

"Oh, that!" The investigator elevated his brows. "Yes, we heard it. As a
matter of fact the confession was made in the first place to Scanlon and
me."

The elation died slowly in the broad face of Osborne; however, that he
still felt his sagacity to be of a superior quality was plain. So he
said, with a carelessness calculated to discount the point gained by the
other:

"Oh, that so? Hadn't heard of it. Well," and he laughed good-humoredly,
"that makes it all the better. You know it's true!"

"It's so, all right," said Scanlon. "He told it to us, and afterward to
the warden and a half dozen of the prison people."

"I said the other night we had a good case against him," smiled Osborne,
as he looked at Ashton-Kirk with nodding head. "Didn't I? Didn't I tell
you I'd seen men sent to the chair on less?"

"Yes, I remember some such expression," replied the investigator.

"But you kind of pooh-poohed it," said the headquarters man, smiling
even more broadly than before. "You spoke of other indications, don't
you remember? It was your idea a woman was in it." He looked at Scanlon,
and laughed. "Recollect that?" he asked. "He said a woman had been
hanging around outside--with a revolver--an old flame of the Bounder's,
maybe."

Scanlon also laughed--and in the sound was an indication of vast relief.
Women had disappeared out of the orbit in which the crime swung, for Mr.
Scanlon. He had gone for days with a fear in his mind, with his spirit
sagging under a weight of expectation. But now he was free of that. No
woman figured in the case--the murderer had said so in his confession.
Woman had vanished utterly from all things having to do with the affair.
And so Scanlon laughed--a laugh of relief; and as he looked at the big,
good-natured face of Osborne, he realized that while he had always liked
him, he had never appreciated him so much as now.

"Yes," said he, "I remember. He rather figured on the lady. But, then,
I've heard it said that you never can count on ladies. You don't know
just when you've got 'em."

There