e
counterpane, as near the crooked fingers as the revolver lay, now rested
a long and ugly kitchen knife.

With a graver fear the detective glanced at the door of the hall.
McDonald had dragged himself that far. He raised his trembling hand,
stretching it towards the bed in a gesture, it seemed to Garth, of
impossible accusation. Then the crouched figure toppled and fell across
the threshold while from somewheres beyond the door a high girlish laugh
rippled.

Garth sprang forward and knelt by the old man, reluctant to search for
what he expected to find. There it was at the back of the coat, a jagged
tear whose edges were stained, showing where the knife had penetrated
the shoulder. The wound didn't look deep or dangerous, and in his
unconsciousness McDonald breathed regularly. So Garth hurried back to
the bed and examined the knife. There was no ambiguity about the red
stains on the blade. The knife, resting close to the dead hand, had
wounded McDonald who had seemed to accuse the still form whose note
projected the impression of having been written after death.

Garth smothered his morbid thoughts. McDonald's daughter was the living
force, probably at large in this house, that he wanted to chain. If she
were guilty of the earlier crime she had sufficient motive for this
attempt to keep the old man silent. She could have got such a knife from
the kitchen. So, for that matter, could Clara. But the eccentric had
laughed. Was that merely coincidence? Garth ran across the hall and
listened at her door with an increasing excitement. He heard the running
of water, regularly interrupted, as if by hands being cleansed under an
open faucet. He tried the door and found it unlocked. He entered,
staring at the daring indifference of the old woman who stepped from the
bath room, calmly drying her hands on a towel.

"Come in, policeman," she said in her high girlish voice. "Don't suffer
in the black hall."

"Let me have that towel," he cried.

Without hesitation she offered him the piece of linen. It showed no
stains, nor were there stains to be found about the wash basin, but the
slab of marble in which it was set was damp as if it had just now been
carefully cleansed. She watched, her wrinkled face set in an expression
of contempt.

"What are you up to? Think if I wanted to do anything wrong I'd let you
find me out?"

"Then you know," he said, "what happened out there in the hall. I heard
you laugh."

She started. Her