, more and more accusatory, Rita Tourville
became more and more uncontrollably nervous.

"It was suggested," modulated Kennedy, playing with his little audience
as a cat might with a mouse, "that someone murdered Rhoda Fleming with
the little-understood poison, ergot, because of an infatuation for the
picture itself. But the modern crook has an eye for pictures, just as
for other valuables. The spread of the taste for art has taught these
fellows that such things as old masters are worth money, and they will
even murder now to get them. No, that radiograph which I have labeled
number one is not a copy. It is of the genuine old master--the real
Watteau.

"Someone, closely associated with Miss Fleming, had found out that she
had the original. That person, in order to get it, went even so far as
to--"

Rita Tourville jumped up, wildly, facing Craig and crying out, "No,
no--his _is_ the copy--the copy by Miss Fleming. It was I who told him
to paint over the signature. It was I who called him away--both
nights--on a pretext--when he was dining with her--alone--called him
because--I--I loved him and I knew--"

Faber was on his feet beside her in a moment, his face plainly showing
his feelings toward her. As he laid his hand on her arm to restrain her,
she turned and caught a penetrating glance from Jacot's hypnotic eye.

Slowly she collapsed into her chair, covering her face with her hands,
sobbing. For a moment a look of intense scorn and hatred blazed in
Leila's face, then was checked.

Craig waved the radiograph of the real Watteau as he emphasized his last
words.

"In spite of Rita Tourville's unexpected love for Faber, winning him
from your victim, and with the aid of your wife, Leila, in the role of
maid, the third member of your unique gang of art thieves, you are
convicted infallibly by my X-ray detective," thundered Craig as he
pointed his finger at the now cowering Jacot.

CHAPTER XXII

THE ABSOLUTE ZERO

"Isn't there some way you can save him, Professor Kennedy? You _must_
come out to Briar Lake."

When a handsome woman like Mrs. Fraser Ferris pleads, she is
irresistible. Not only that, but the story which she had not trusted
either to a message or a messenger was deeply interesting, for, already,
it had set agog the fashionable country house colony.

Mrs. Ferris had come to us not as the social leader now, but as a
mother. Only the night before her son, young Fraser, had been arrested
by t