way.
"Miss Duclos' death was of a nature demanding an inquest. Your testimony,
hard as it may be for you to give it, is necessary for a righteous
verdict. That is all we want--"

"It is too much!" she cried. And with a quick glance upward she took
another step or two along the bridge till she had reached the broken
rail; and before Sweetwater in his dismay could more than give a
horrified bound in her direction, she had made the fatal leap and was
gone from their sight into the gorge below.

BOOK IV

NEMESIS

XXVII

FROM LIPS LONG SILENT

"This finishes my usefulness as a detective. I have had my fill of
horrors; all, in fact, that my old age can stand."

Thus, Mr. Gryce, as hours afterward he and Sweetwater turned their faces
back toward New York.

"I appreciate your feelings," responded the latter, who had been
strangely silent all day, speaking only when directly addressed. "I can
assure you that in my way I'm as much cut up as you are. I wish now that
I had made an attempt from the rear to head off this distracted woman,
even if I had been obliged to scratch my hands to pieces tearing a board
from the fence."

"It would have done no good. She was determined to die rather than give
up her secret. I remember the look with which her sister-in-law warned
me that she would never survive a capture. But I thought that mere
exaggeration."

Then after a moment of conscious silence on the part of both, the weary
old man added with bitter emphasis, "Her testimony might--I do not say
would--have cleared away our suspicions of Director Roberts."

Sweetwater, who was acting as chauffeur, slowed down his machine till it
came to a standstill at the side of the road. Then wheeling quietly about
till he faced his surprised companion, he remarked very gravely:

"Mr. Gryce, I hadn't the heart to tell you this before, but the time
has come for you to know that Mr. Roberts' cause is not so favorably
affected, as you seem to think, by this suicidal death of one who without
doubt would have proved to be a leading witness against him. I am sure
you will agree with me in this when I inform you that in pursuing the
task you set me, I came upon _this_."

Thrusting his hand into his pocket, he pulled out a large envelope from
which he proceeded to draw forth first the tattered square of what had
once been a cabinet portrait, and then a freshly printed proof of the
same. Holding them both up, he waited for the wo