"Her husband couldn't come to Furmville very
often." "Loveliest black hair I _ever_ saw." "She used to be----"

Then followed quick glimpses of her life as they had seen or heard it: a
dance at Maplewood Inn where she had been the undisputed belle; a novel
she had liked; a big reception at the White House in Washington when,
during the year of her debut, the French ambassador had called her "the
most beautiful American," and the newspapers had made much of it; an
emerald ring she had worn; the unfailing good humour she had always shown
in the tedious routine of nursing her sister--and so on, a mass of facts
and impressions which were, simultaneously, a little biography of her and
an unaffected appreciation of the way she had touched and coloured their
lives.

Captain Greenleaf, with one of the plain-clothes men of his force, came
hurrying up the steps. The crowd fell back, gave them passage, and closed
in again.

"Nothing's been disturbed, captain," said Bristow.

"Where is she?" asked Greenleaf anxiously. He was not accustomed to
murder cases.

He caught sight of the body on the sofa.

"God!" he said in a low tone, and turned toward the plain-clothes man:

"Come on in, Jenkins--you, too, Mr. Bristow."

The three entered the living room, and Greenleaf, with a muttered word of
apology to the on-lookers, closed the door in their faces.

He, too, did what Bristow had done--put his fingers on the dead woman's
wrist. He was breathing rapidly, and his hand shook. Jenkins stood
motionless. He also was overwhelmed by the tragedy. Besides, he was not
cut out for work of this kind. In looking for illicit distillers and
boot-leggers, or negroes charged with theft, he was in his element, but
this sort of thing was new to him. He had no idea of where to turn or
what to do.

"She's dead," Bristow said to the captain. "The doctor says she has been
dead a long time--hours."

"Where's the doctor?"

"Back there. Miss Fulton, the sister, is hysterical with fright."

"Who sent for the doctor?"

"I did. I asked one of the women here to telephone."

"Then I'll call the coroner."

He stepped through the open folding doors into the dining room and
took down the receiver, looking, as he did so, at the body and its
surroundings.

Bristow stooped down, picked up something from the floor near the sofa
and dropped it into his vest pocket.

The doctor--Dr. Braley--returned as the captain hung up the telephone
receiver.

"M