ague had so successfully masqueraded to carry out her various
swindling operations.

It will be remembered that Mona, after she had gathered up the keepsakes
belonging to her mother and returned them to the table, had found another
box upon the floor of Mrs. Montague's boudoir.

When she had removed the rubber band that held the cover in its place,
her astonished eyes fell upon a pair of exquisite diamond crescents for
the ears, and a cross, which, from the description which Ray had given
her, she knew must have been among the articles stolen from Mr. Palmer.

Instantly it flashed across her what this discovery meant.

She felt very sure that Mrs. Montague must have been concerned in the
swindling of Mr. Cutler, more than three years previous, and also of Mrs.
Vanderbeck in Boston, besides in the more recent so-called Palmer
robbery.

Still, there were circumstances connected with these operations that
puzzled her.

Mrs. Bently, the crafty widow of Chicago, had been described to her as a
stout woman with red hair. Mrs. Vanderbeck had also been somewhat portly,
likewise Mrs. Walton, whom she had seen in St. Louis, and these latter
were somewhat advanced in years also.

Mrs. Montague, on the contrary, was slight and sylph-like in figure; a
blonde of the purest type, with light golden hair, a lovely complexion,
with hardly the sign of a wrinkle on her handsome face.

But she did not speculate long upon these matters, for, having made this
discovery, she was more anxious than before to be released from her place
of confinement. So she had gone into the adjoining room, and tried the
door leading into the hall.

That, too, as we know, she had found locked, and then, as she turned to
retrace her steps, she was stricken spellbound by something which she saw
upon the bed.

It was nothing less than a widow's costume, comprising a dress, bonnet,
and vail, together with a wig of short, curling red hair!

Yes, Mrs. Montague was the "widow!" or woman in black whom Detective
Rider had observed and followed only a little while previous. When she
found that the man was on her track she had slipped into the carriage and
ordered the driver to take her with all possible speed to a certain store
on Broadway. Arriving there, she had simply passed in at one door and out
of one opposite leading upon a side street, where she hailed a car, and,
thoroughly alarmed, went directly home instead of going to the room where
she usually mad