Reaching Furmville early Sunday morning, Bristow went straight to his bungalow, where Mattie had breakfast waiting for him.

"You is sholy some big man now, Mistuh Bristow!" she informed him. "Sence you been gawn, folks done made it a habit to drive by hyuh jes' foh de chanct uv seem' you."

Before the day was over, he found that this was true. And he liked it. He spent a great deal of his time on the front porch, finding it far from unpleasant to be regarded as a second Sherlock Holmes.

Late in the afternoon his Cincinnati friend, Overton, called on him, puffing and gasping for breath as he climbed the steps. Bristow was glad to see him; it afforded him an opportunity to discuss his success. He did not try to delude himself in that regard; he was proud of what he had accomplished—rightfully proud, he told himself—and pleased with his plans for the future.

"Gee whiz!" the fat man panted. "This hill is something fierce. It's only your sudden dash into the limelight that drags me up here."

"You behold"—Bristow softened his statement with a deprecating laugh—"Mr. Lawrence Bristow, a finished, honest-to-heaven detective, a criminologist."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm going to make it my profession. I'm starting out as a professional detective."

Overton burst into bubbling laughter.

"That's rich!" he exclaimed. "You'd never in the world make good at it. Why, Bristow, you're lame; you've a crooked nose; that heavy, overhanging lip of yours—those things would enable any crook to spot you a mile off." He laughed again. "I'd like to see you shadowing some foxy second-story worker!"

"I said 'a consulting detective'," Bristow corrected him. "That shadowing business is for the hired man, the square-toed, bull-necked cops. I'll work only as the directing head, the brains of the investigations."

"Oh, that's different," said Overton, at once conciliatory. "That's nearer real sense. Big money in it, isn't there?"

"Yes. I'm not an eleemosynary institution yet."

Overton mopped his fat cheeks.

"Ah, me!" he sighed. "We never know what's ahead of us, do we? A year ago you were dubbing around in Cincinnati trying to sell real estate and working out crime problems on paper—and here you are now, a big man. It's hard to believe."

"It is, however, a very acceptable fact."

"No doubt, no doubt," assented the fat man.

On Overton's heels came the chief of police. After getting a minute recital of what had happened in Washington and Baltimore, he agreed that Braceway was only setting up straw men for the pleasure of knocking them down.

"Even if there is something mysterious in Morley's conduct, in what occurred in Baltimore," said the chief, "it can't do away with the open-and-shut fact that Perry did the murder."

"Of course," Bristow commented. "But what's the news with you?"

"For one thing, Perry gave us last night what he calls a confession. In it he says he did tell Lucy Thomas he knew where he could get money 'or something just as good'; he did go to Number Five in a more or less drunken condition; and he got as far as the front door.

"There, he says, he thought he heard a noise across the road from him, and he lost his nerve. He tiptoed down the steps and went away, passing in between Number Five and Number Seven. He ran all the way back to Lucy's house, threw down the key he had got from her, and then went to his own rooming-house. He says he stayed there the rest of the night."

"Is that all?"

"That's all."

"How about the lavalliere? Wasn't it found under his window? The papers said so."

"Yes; in the grass in the yard. But he denies knowing anything about it."

"Of course! And his confession is nothing but a confirmation of the case against him."

"Exactly. He seems to want to hang himself. And he'll do it. The grand jury meets next Thursday. He'll be indicted then, and tried two weeks later."

"What are the people here saying about Braceway's bitterness against Morley? Anything?"

"Yes. I'd meant to tell you about that. Some of the gossip hits Withers pretty hard. They can't understand what's behind this persecution of Morley after it's been proved that Perry did the murder. You've seen hints of it in the papers.

"And it looks queer. Some say Withers is guilty, out-and-out guilty, and afraid the case against Perry won't hold good. So, they say, he wants to get a case against Morley."

"A sort of second line of defense?"

"I reckon so. But, then, there are others saying right now that Morley was mixed up in some sort of scandal for which Withers wants revenge. That's what you said at the very start. Remember?"

Bristow laughed softly.

"Yes; I had that idea, and I've reasoned it out. On the way to Washington, and after we got there, I saw that Braceway wasn't entirely frank with me. You know how a man can feel a thing like that. He gets it by intuition.

"And it worried me. Having handled the case here, I didn't want him to spring some brand new angle which possibly, in some way, might make me look like a fool.

"I puzzled over the thing a whole lot. What was it he was after without letting me in on it? The night we talked to Morley in the station house, I got it. We were in a cab at the time, a lucky thing, because, when it burst upon me, I narrowly escaped hysterics. The thing came to me like an inspiration.

"Braceway was afraid Morley knew something detrimental to Withers and would spring it under questioning. Understand now: it wasn't directly connected with the murder, but something that would make it pretty hot for Withers. And here was the laugh: while Morley didn't know it, I did. Braceway had made the trip to gag Morley, to see that he didn't uncover something which, after all, Morley didn't know—and I did!

"It was this: about nine months ago Mrs. Withers, while in Washington, got a lawyer, the firm of Dutton & Dutton, to draw up for her the necessary papers for suing Withers for a divorce. In these documents she set forth in so many words that her husband had treated her with the utmost brutality, so much so that she lived daily in danger of death while under his roof.

"She regarded him, she swore, as capable of murdering her at any time. Now, do you see? If that had gotten into the newspapers, if Morley had known of it through Maria Fulton and had blurted it out, no power on earth could have kept down the very reasonable assumption that Withers had had a hand in his wife's death—or, at least, had regarded it with complaisance.

"No wonder I laughed, was it? But I said nothing about it to Braceway. I couldn't have explained to him how I knew it, although the tip came to me straight enough. And, as there's no earthly chance of Withers having been implicated in the crime, why worry about it?

"I merely laughed and—kept quiet."

Greenleaf had listened in great solemnity to this amusing recital.

"Maybe you're right," he said. "But Withers has done some funny things."

"What things?"

"His wife was buried in Atlanta Thursday morning. He immediately left Atlanta, and hasn't been seen or heard of since—a sharp contrast to old Fulton. He got back here early Friday morning and came up to Number Five. They're going to keep that bungalow."

"When did Withers leave Atlanta?"

"Thursday morning, right after the funeral. Another thing: he's heels over head in debt."

"Well, what about it? What are you driving at?" Bristow asked, perceptibly irritable.

"I'm not driving at anything. What's it to us anyway? It stimulates this ugly talk. That's all."

Bristow was doing some quick thinking. If Withers had left Atlanta early Thursday morning, he might have reached Washington by Friday afternoon—and gone to Baltimore! But did he? And did Braceway know of it and keep it to himself?

He recalled that Braceway, during their breakfast together in Washington, had said:

"Get one thing straight in your mind, Bristow. Any man I find mixed up in this murder I'm going to turn over to the police. If I thought George Withers had killed his wife, I'd hand him over so fast it would make your head swim. You may not believe that, but I would—in a second!"

Had that been a prophecy? Was Withers in Baltimore at two-thirty Friday afternoon? Could he have been fool enough to pawn anything? Or did he go there in the hope of incriminating Morley further? All these things were within the realm of possibility, but hardly credible. Braceway might have known of them, and he might not.

Abrahamson, he remembered, had put it into Braceway's head, against Braceway's own desire, that the man with the gold tooth and Withers resembled each other. But nobody believed that. It would be futile to consider it.

The chief, as if reading his thoughts, gave more information:

"Abrahamson, the loan-shark, came to my office yesterday; wanted to know where he could reach Braceway by wire. He evidently knew something and wouldn't tell me. Said he wired yesterday morning to Braceway in Washington, but the telegraph company reported 'no delivery'—couldn't locate him. I wonder what the Jew knows."

"It's too much for me." Bristow dismissed the question carelessly, but immediately flared up peevishly: "What's getting into these fellows? They act like fools, each of them, Morley and Withers, following Perry's lead and trying to have themselves arrested! But Braceway—if he wasn't in Washington, he must be on his way back here. We'll soon have his last say on the case."

"All the same," said Greenleaf, "if I were in that husband's place, I'd stay away from here. The talk's too bitter; worse here among the Manniston Road people than anywhere else."

"Well, what of it?"

"It wouldn't be the first instance of how easy it is for an innocent man to be—well, hurt."

"Oh, that sort of thing is out of the question, absurd."

"Never mind! I'd stay away. That's what I'd do."

It was almost dark when the chief of police took his departure. Bristow sat watching the last crimson light fade over the mountains. The dim electric, a poor excuse for a street lamp, had flashed on in front of No. 4. The shadows grew deeper and deeper; there was no breeze; the oaks along the roadside and in the backyards became still, black plumes above the bungalows.

Manniston Road was wrapped in darkness. The silence was broken, even at this early hour, only by the distant, faint screech of street-car wheels against the rails, or the far sound of an automobile horn down in the town, or the rattle of a sick man's cough on one of the sleeping porches. There was something uncanny, Bristow thought, in the velvet blackness and the heavy silence.

He got up and went into the living room, turning on the lights. The night, the stillness, had affected him. Perhaps, he thought, Withers after all would do well to give Furmville a wide berth. If disorganized rumour grew into positive accusation——

And what of himself, Bristow? He had run down the guilty man, had discovered and hooked together the facts that made retribution almost an accomplished thing. Could he have been mistaken, entirely wrong? Would public opinion turn also against him and say he had enmeshed an innocent negro instead of bringing to punishment a jealousy-maddened husband?

Was there a chance that, in condemning Withers, they would destroy his reputation for brilliant work?

Pshaw! He shrugged his shoulders. He was worse than the gossiping women, letting himself conjure up weird and incredible ideas. There was not a weak place, not an illogical point, in the case he had disclosed against Carpenter. He had won. His prestige was assured. Far from questioning his work, they ought to thank him for——

The reverie was interrupted by the telephone bell. He took down the receiver and shouted "Hello!" as if he resented the call. His irritation showed what a tremendous amount of nervous energy he had expended in the last six days.

"Western Union speaking," said a man's voice. "Telegram for Mr. Lawrence Bristow, nine Manniston Road."

"All right. This is Bristow. Read it to me."

"Message is dated today, Washington, D. C.—'Mr. Lawrence Bristow, nine Manniston Road, Furmville, N. C. See Encyclopaedia Britannica, volume one, page five hundred and six, second column, line fifteen to line seventeen, and page five hundred and seven, second column, line seventeen to line twenty-three.' Signed 'S. S. Braceway,' Do you get that?"

"No! Wait a minute," he called out sharply. "Let me get a pencil and take it down."

He did so, verifying the numbers by having the operator repeat the message a third time. When he had hung up the receiver, he sat staring at what he had written. It was like so much Greek to him.

"What's it all about?" he puzzled. "Is it one of Braceway's jokes?"

Then he remembered that Braceway was not that kind of a joker. He looked at his watch. He had no encyclopaedia, and it was now a quarter to eleven, too late to ring up anybody and ask the absurd favour of having extracts from an encyclopaedia read to him over the telephone. Besides, it might be something he would prefer to keep to himself.

He would wait until morning and go to the public library where he could look up the references with no questions asked. He was annoyed by the necessity of delay, angry with Braceway. He studied the numbers again, and allowed himself the rare luxury of an outburst of vari-coloured profanity.

The idea uppermost in his mind was that the telegram had to do with Withers—or could it be something about Morley?

In his bed on the sleeping porch, he looked out at the black plumes of the trees. The silence seemed now neither sinister nor oppressive. All that was sinister was in the past; had ended the night of the murder; and Carpenter would go to the chair for it—sure.

And yet, if he were Withers, he would not come back to Manniston Road. Nobody could foresee what Braceway might imagine and exaggerate, even if it indicted and condemned his closest friend.