terial it was torn here and there, and on the right hand
sleeve there were blood stains. That was why the gown had been hidden in
the easiest place, the first place at hand. That undoubtedly explained
Reed's daring intention to get the gown and destroy it before the body
should be moved and the evidence discovered. Garth glanced at the man,
who still shook, a picture of broken nerves, at the side of the bed. And
Garth's hand, holding the tell-tale gown, commenced to tremble too, for
it had offered him a solution of everything. He had no time for
analysis. Already there were stirrings outside. Their voices and Nora's
cry had aroused the others in the house.

"Don't you see it, Nora?" he cried, "and it wasn't intuition. The truth
has stared at us from the first, but we wouldn't open our eyes."

"I see nothing," Nora said, "except that his motive was common enough,
cheap enough."

"You don't understand," Garth smiled.

He stepped to the hall where he met Mrs. Taylor coming from her room.

"What is it?" she asked.

Garth shrank from telling her the truth.

"I know who murdered your husband," he answered gently.

"Who--"

But the opening of her mother's door interrupted her. The old woman
appeared, her eyes wild, her hands shaking.

"What's the matter out here? Helen! What's happened?"

"I want to examine your room a little closer," he said. "I wondered at
the start that there was so much furniture in it, and I'll wager there
are things hidden beneath the bed and back of that large screen. I know
now, too, that it wasn't you who washed your hands this afternoon. I
know that you fooled me with a clean towel while the person who had
tried to kill McDonald slipped through the communicating door from your
bathroom--"

She screamed to stop him. She placed her slender body against the panels
of the door. She stretched her arms to either side, forming a barrier he
didn't care to pass. She commenced to laugh again, but there were tears
in her eyes, and he saw that all along her laughter had been grief.
Still without time to analyze, he received from the old lady a perfect
corroboration. He whispered to Nora, instructing her to bring the
policeman from the front door.

"We may have difficult violence on our hands," he warned her.

Without waiting to argue, Nora ran down the stairs. Mrs. Taylor came
closer, asking the question her mother had interrupted.

"Who is it? Why do you speak to my mother like this? Not she--