t bother with that at all. Just get what's under the nails.
You'd better use merely an orange stick, I think. Will you do that for me
carefully--very carefully? It's of the greatest importance."

Miss Kelly finally said she would.

He went back to his own porch and sat a long time watching the last,
fading rays of the sunset.

But he was not thinking about the landscape.

"This man Withers," he was reflecting, "and his getting this detective,
Braceway. Let me think. I mustn't look at these things in the light of my
theories only. Too much theorizing is confusing.

"I want to get the angle of the ordinary man in the street. How would it
look to him? Why, this way: either Withers is on the level and wants
to do everything possible to have the murderer caught--or he's smart
enough to employ Braceway in the knowledge that neither Braceway nor
anybody else can get anything from him that he doesn't want to tell--I
wonder."

CHAPTER VIII

THE BREATH OF SCANDAL

A telegraph messenger laboured up to the hill on his bicycle and climbed
the steps to the porch of No. 5, displaying in his hand several
telegrams. Two other boys had preceded him within the last hour. Friends
of the Fulton family, having read of the tragedy in afternoon papers
throughout the country, were wiring their messages of sympathy.

This was no little local, isolated affair, Bristow reflected. The
prominence of the victim in Washington and in the South, together with
the mystery surrounding the crime, made it a matter of national interest.
If he could bring the thing to a successful issue, the capture and
punishment of the right man, there would be fame in it for him. The
thought stimulated him.

A few minutes later Withers came up Manniston Road and went into No. 5.
Soon after that Miss Kelly brought Bristow a little paper packet.

"I'm not sure I ought to do this," she said, "but, as long as the
authorities have ordered it, I guess I'm safe. This is what I get as a
result of 'doing' Miss Fulton's nails."

He thanked her and reassured her.

Mattie appeared at the door to tell him his supper was ready. Before he
sat down at the table, he telephoned Greenleaf.

"There's something else I want you to send to Charlotte with the Perry
package."

"Same sort of thing?" inquired the chief.

"Yes--Miss Fulton's."

"Wow!" barked Greenleaf over the wire. "I never thought of that."

"That's all right, I nearly forgot it myself. How will you s