spot, festooned with cobwebs, it cried to the skies for brooms and mops.
In the background, apparently undisturbed since the days of the First
Empire, a great pile of straw mixed with junk of various kinds lay
against the wall; and most reluctantly, my every fiber shrieking
protest, I saw what use I might make of this debris--if I could.

"Go for it!" I told myself inexorably, but miserably. "It's not a
question of liking it, you know. You've got to do it." Grimly I wrapped
my discarded clothes about the poor chap's body, dragged it to the
straw, and covered it from head to foot. By this action, I surmised, I
was rendering myself a probable accessory and a certain suspect; but the
one thing I really cared about was my last glimpse of that patient face.

"Sorry, old man," was all the apology I could muster. "And if I ever get
a chance at the people who did it, you can count on me!"

With a sigh of complete exhaustion, I rose and looked about. All signs
of the crime had been obliterated from the garage. "I must be crazy!" I
thought, as the enormity of the thing rushed on me. "I wonder why I did
it? And I wonder whether I can forget it some day--maybe after twenty
years?"

As I opened the door to the garden the dim light was growing clearer. I
was late; the girl, coated and hatted, ready for flitting, was already
at the rendezvous. At sight of me in my leather togs she started
backward; then, resolutely controlled, she drew herself up and faced me
silently, her hands clutching at her furs, her lips a little apart.

"Won't you sit down?" I began lamely, indicating an iron bench. It was
all so different from the interview I had planned last night! "I want to
speak to you about your chauffeur, Miss Falconer. This morning I found
him hurt--very badly hurt--"

She drove straight through my pretense.

"Not dead? Oh, Mr. Bayne, not dead?"

"Yes," I said gently. "He had been dead some time. I would have liked
to take my chances with him; but I came too late. No, please!" She had
moved forward, and I was barring her passage. "You mustn't go. You can't
help him, and you wouldn't like the sight."

How black her eyes were in her white face!

"I don't understand," she faltered. "You mean that he was murdered? But
who would have killed Georges?"

"The men who came last night--if you can call them men. At least,
appearances point that way," I said.

"The men in the gray car?" She swayed a little. "But why?"

"I'm afraid I