that midnight train. He did what he had planned to do, came back to
Number Five, confronted Mrs. Withers soon after her escort had left her
at the door, demanded the jewels, was refused; and then, in a blind rage
or a panic, killed her and stole the jewels."

"There's no use blinking the fact," said Bristow in a quiet, calculating
way, trying to keep in his mind all the other peculiar circumstances
surrounding this crime. "From the way we've put it, the thing reads as
plainly as a primer. Now, what are we to do? Even now, we haven't the
proof on him--any real proof."

"Suppose," said Braceway, "we let him leave Furmville, let him go back
to Washington, with the hope that he does pawn the stuff he's stolen?"

"And suppose," Bristow added, "we get a detailed description of all the
jewelry Mrs. Withers owned, and wire that description to the police of
the principal towns between here and Washington and between here and
Atlanta. We'll make the request, of course, that they watch the pawnshops
and nab anybody who shows up with any of the Withers stuff?"

"That's it! That's it as sure as you're born!" Braceway struck the arm of
his chair and catapulted himself into a standing position. "That will get
him--provided, of course, he's desperate enough to take the chance of
pawning any of it."

"One other thing," Bristow supplemented. "You said Withers said something
to you this morning about your knowing what his life had been. Just what
did he mean?"

Braceway reflected a moment,

"There's no reason for your not knowing it," he confided. "Withers
had rather a trying life with his wife. It was a baffling sort of a
situation. She was in love with him. I haven't a doubt of that. And he
was in love with her.

"She was one of the most fascinating women I ever saw. They used to say
in Atlanta that all the women liked her, and that any man who had once
shaken hands with her and looked her in the eye was, forever after, her
obedient servant.

"But she was never entirely frank with Withers. Naturally, that at first
made him regretful, and later it made him jealous. You know his type.
I'm not sure that I have the whole story, but that's the foundation of
it, and it led to bitter disagreements and fierce quarrels.

"Some of their acquaintances got on to it, and couldn't understand why a
woman like her and a good fellow like Withers couldn't hit it off. Things
got worse and worse. I don't believe Withers minded her being up here