ider, and it's
not a very pretty theory; either that Morley killed Mrs. Withers, and
Miss Fulton knows it; or that Morley and Miss Fulton together killed her;
or that, although Perry killed her, we, in looking for the murderer, have
come pretty near to stumbling on some sort of a nasty family scandal,
something in which Maria Fulton, Enid Withers and George Withers, with
perhaps another man, all have been mixed up.

"I mean a scandal ugly enough for all the rest of them to make desperate
attempts to keep it hidden, even when Mrs. Withers is dead and gone.
Frankly, I didn't believe Withers was in on the murder or that he
believes Maria had anything to do with it or knows how it was done.

"But Maria Fulton--that's different. How else are we to explain her
behaviour with us when we tried to interview her, the fact of her sudden
abhorrence for Morley, the man to whom she was engaged only yesterday?

"And how else are we to explain Morley's unexplained two hours of last
night, and his apparent terror today, and his whole connection with the
case--the matter of the ring found in his hotel room, and all that?
There's something fishy about this thing somehow, something fishy that
includes Maria Fulton and Morley.

"This fellow with the brown beard and the gold tooth strengthens the
theory of some rotten scandal. He must be mixed up in it some way. I'll
bet anything, though, that he had nothing to do with the murder. That's
what we want to get at--this inside scandal, this something which existed
long before the murder but yet may have led indirectly to the murder."

Greenleaf sighed and passed his hand wearily across his eyes. He had had
a hard day, the hardest day of his life.

"But you think my plan for the inquest is all right?" he asked once more.

"Yes; it's the best thing possible. By the way, don't have me summoned to
testify. Leave my evidence until the trial. I don't want to wear myself
out going down there for merely an inquest."

"All right; I'll fix that. We've enough evidence without yours--enough
for the inquest, anyway."

"Thanks."

Bristow looked at his watch, and Greenleaf got up to go.

"I'll be up here between eight and nine tomorrow morning," he said, "if
that suits you."

"What for?"

"To get a good look at the grounds back of Number Five. If the murderer
dropped anything, I want to be the man to pick it up."

"Oh, I'd forgotten that," Bristow said in a tone indicating his
hopelessness of