of
your calling until you get some definite word from me. I shall not keep
you in suspense one minute longer than is absolutely necessary."

He had risen. I rose too. But I was not satisfied. I could not leave the
room with my ideas (I might say with my convictions) in such a turmoil.

"Inspector," said I, "you will think me very obstinate, but all you
have told me about Sears, all I have heard about him, in fact,"--this
I emphasized,--"does not convince me of the entire folly of my
own suspicions. Indeed, I am afraid that, if anything, they are
strengthened. This steward, who is a doubtful character, I acknowledge,
may have had his reasons for wishing Mrs. Fairbrother's death, may even
have had a hand in the matter; but what evidence have you to show that
he, himself, entered the alcove, struck the blow or stole the diamond?
I have listened eagerly for some such evidence, but I have listened in
vain."

"I know," he murmured, "I know. But it will come; at least I think so."

This should have reassured me, no doubt, and sent me away quiet and
happy. But something--the tenacity of a deep conviction, possibly--kept
me lingering before the inspector and finally gave me the courage to
say:

"I know I ought not to speak another word; that I am putting myself at
a disadvantage in doing so; but I can not help it, Inspector; I can not
help it when I see you laying such stress upon the few indirect clues
connecting the suspicious Sears with this crime, and ignoring the direct
clues we have against one whom we need not name."

Had I gone too far? Had my presumption transgressed all bounds and would
he show a very natural anger? No, he smiled instead, an enigmatical
smile, no doubt, which I found it difficult to understand, but yet a
smile.

"You mean," he suggested, "that Sears' possible connection with the
crime can not eliminate Mr. Grey's very positive one; nor can the fact
that Wellgood's hand came in contact with Mr. Grey's, at or near the
time of the exchange of the false stone with the real, make it any less
evident who was the guilty author of this exchange?"

The inspector's hand was on the door-knob, but he dropped it at this,
and surveying me very quietly said:

"I thought that a few days spent at the bedside of Miss Grey in the
society of so renowned and cultured a gentleman as her father would
disabuse you of these damaging suspicions."

"I don't wonder that you thought so," I burst out. "You would think