at?" asked the major, with the first show of
deep emotion I have ever observed in him.

My agitation was greater than his as I replied:

"In the rough boarding under those drawers. Some woman's arm and
hand has preceded mine in stealthy search after that fatal spring.
A woman who wore lace, valuable lace."

There was but one woman connected with this affair who rightly
answered these conditions. The bride! Veronica Moore.

XXIII

WORDS IN THE NIGHT

Had I any premonition of the astounding fact thus suddenly and, I
may say, dramatically revealed to us during the weeks I had devoted
to the elucidation of the causes and circumstances of Mrs. Jeffrey's
death? I do not think so. Nothing in her face, as I remembered it;
nothing in the feeling evinced toward her by husband or sister, had
prepared me for a disclosure of crime so revolting as to surpass all
that I had ever imagined or could imagine in a woman of such dainty
personality and unmistakable culture. Nor was the superintendent
or the district attorney less confounded by the event. Durbin only
tried to look wise and strut about, but it was of no use; he
deceived nobody. Veronica Moore's real connection with Mr. Pfeiffer's
death,--a death which in some inscrutable way had in so short a time
led to her own,--was an overwhelming surprise to every one of us.

The superintendent, as was natural, recovered first.

"This throws quite a new light upon the matter," said he. "Now we
can understand why Mr. Jeffrey uttered that extraordinary avowal
overheard on the bridge: 'She must die!' She had come to him with
blood on her hands."

It seemed incredible, nay more, unreal. I recalled the sweet
refined face turned up to me from the bare boards of this same floor,
the accounts I had read of the vivacity of her spirits and the wild
charm of her manner till the shadow of this old house fell upon her.
I marveled, still feeling myself in the dark, still clinging to my
faith in womankind, still asking to what depths her sister had
followed her in the mazes of crime we were forced to recognize but
could not understand.

Durbin had no such feelings and no such scruples, as was shown by
the sarcastic comment which now left his lips.

"So!" he cried, "we have to do with three criminals instead of two.
Nice family, the Moore-Jeffreys!"

But no one paid any attention to him. Addressing the major, the
district attorney asked when he expected to hear from Den