despair, as one does note these little trivial things in the
midst of a great trouble, Mr. Deland. But it _was_ there-- I am
positive. And you can't find it now?"

"No, Lady Paula."

"Oh! Then undoubtedly Maud has hidden it away somewhere, in case I might
_steal_ it, I suppose, and so do her precious brother out of his
inheritance, if such a thing were possible."

The venom in her voice was like the bite of a serpent--positively
poisonous, and Cleek gave her a quick, keen look.

"Hardly that, Lady Paula. And--well, I don't happen to be well up on
these matters at all, the law, y'know, and all that--only the law of
criminals, and that's an altogether different thing. No doubt one of the
family has put it away. It will turn up in time. Now, please go away
before the rest of the constables arrive. You will want every atom of
your strength to see this appalling thing through, believe me, and
therefore I insist that you harbour it."

She smiled up at him sadly, and turned upon her heel, her trailing pink
negligee whisking across the thickly carpeted floor like the tail of
some sinuous snake, weighted as it was with one heavy beaded tassel.

"Very well--if you wish," she said quietly, with an arch glance at him;
but as she went something white fluttered to the ground in the wake of
her, and Cleek, waiting until she had gone, closed the door softly, and
then bent down and whisked it up.

It was a handkerchief--a mere wisp of gossamer, with Duchesse lace edge,
and the name _Paula_ written in embroidery across one corner of its
fragile square.

A little twisted smile flitted across his face as he looked at it, and
then suddenly his mouth went grim. This was obviously the handkerchief
in question--and she had had it upon her person every moment of the
time! So _that_ excuse was a false one, from the start-out. Then, too,
a woman who could look archly at another man over her own husband's dead
body was surely no woman at all, but a harpy in woman's guise. It was
ghoulish, horrible!... And if the excuse were false, what did she come
for--in the early hours of the morning, when servants were only just
astir in the other wing of the house, and she knew that there was that
dead Thing who had been her husband to be confronted? Would a woman face
a murdered man for a mere handkerchief?... She would lose a thousand
such sooner, from what _he_ knew of the feminine sex.

No, there was some other reason, and that a secret one. Wa