me she had talked with you quite frankly.
Well, she recalls that once she and this Morley were discussing the
wearing of beards and moustaches; and he made this remark: 'One thing
about a beard, it's the best disguise possible.'"

"That is interesting, Mr. Fulton. Anything else?"

"Yes. He had a good deal to say to that general effect. He said even a
moustache, cleverly worn, changed a man's whole expression. That struck
me at once, remembering that the jewels were pawned in Baltimore by a man
who wore a moustache. Then, too, Morley said something about the value of
eyebrows in a disguise, substituting bushy ones for thin ones, or vice
versa. He had the whole business at his tongue's end."

"He said all that, in what connection--crime?"

"She can't recall that. She merely remembers he said it. I thought you'd
like to know of it."

"Of course. We can't have too many facts. By the way, sir, can you tell
me where Mr. Withers is?"

"In Atlanta."

Seeing that he knew nothing of his son-in-law's disappearance, Bristow
dropped the subject, and asked:

"What is Miss Fulton's belief now? She still thinks Morley is the man?"

The old man hitched his chair closer to Bristow's and lowered his voice.

"She says a curious thing, Mr. Bristow. She declares that, if Morley
isn't guilty, George Withers is."

"And you?"

"Oh, the talk about George is absurd."

"But," urged Bristow, his smile persuasive, "for the sake of argument, if
circumstances pointed to him as----"

"I'd spend every dollar I have, use the last atom of my strength, to send
him to the chair! No suffering, no torture, would be too much for him--if
that's what you mean to ask me. If I even suspected him, I'd subject him
to an inquiry more relentless, more searching, more merciless than I'd
use with anybody else!"

His nostrils expanded curiously. His eyes flamed.

"Mr. Bristow," he continued, menace in his low tone, "no punishment ever
devised by man could be sufficient to pay for, to atone for, the horror,
the enormity, of the destruction of such a woman as my daughter was.
Mercy? I'd show him no mercy if he lived a thousand years!"

"I understand your feeling," Bristow said. "You're perfectly right, of
course. And what I was leading up to is this: although we know that the
idea of Withers' guilt is absurd, he's being made to suffer. You've seen
intimations, almost direct statements, in the newspapers. People are
talking disagreeably.

"They're say