The softened electric light suffused a glamour of glowing color over the rich brocade of the walls of Marcus Gard’s library, catching a glint here and there on iridescent plaques, or a mellow high light on the luscious patine of an antique bronze. The stillness, so characteristic of the place, seemed to isolate it from the whole world, save when a distant bell musically announced the hour.

Brencherly sat facing his employer, respecting his anxious silence, while they waited the coming of the district attorney, to whose clemency they must appeal surely common humanity would counsel protective measures, secrecy, in the proceeding of the law. The links in the chain of evidence were now complete, but more than diplomacy would be required in order to bring about the legal closing of the affair without precipitating a scandal. Gard’s own hasty actions led back to his fear for Mrs. Marteen, that in turn involved the cause of that suspicion. To convince the newsmongers that the crime was one of an almost accidental nature, he felt would be easy. An escaped lunatic had committed the murder. That revenge lay behind the insane act would be hidden. If necessary, the authorities of the asylum could be silenced with a golden gag but the law?

Neither of the two men, waiting in the silent house, underestimated the importance of the coming interview.

The night was already far spent, and the expected visitor still delayed. At length the pale secretary appeared at the door to announce his coming.

Gard rose from his seat, and extended a welcoming hand to gray-haired, sharp-featured District Attorney Field.

Brencherly bowed with awkward diffidence.

Gard’s manner was ease and cordiality itself, but his heart misgave him. So much depended upon the outcome of this meeting. He would not let himself dwell upon its possibilities, but faced the situation with grim determination.

“Well, Field,” he said genially, “let me thank you for coming. You are tired, I know. I’m greatly indebted to you, but I’m coming straight to the point. The fact is, we,” and he swept an including gesture toward his companion, “have the whole story of Victor Mahr’s death. Brencherly is a detective in my personal employ.” Field bowed and turned again to his host. “The person of the murderer is in our care,” Gard continued. “But before we make this public before we draw in the authorities, there are things to be considered.”

He paused a moment. The district attorney’s eyes had snapped with surprise.

“You don’t mean to tell me,” he said slowly, “that you have the key to that mystery! Have you turned detective, Mr. Gard? Well, nothing surprises me any more. What was the motive? You’ve learned that, too, I suppose?”

“Insanity,” said Gard shortly.

“Revenge,” said the detective.

“Suppose,” said Gard, “a crime were committed by a totally irresponsible person, would it be possible, once that fact was thoroughly established, to keep investigation from that person; to conduct the matter so quietly that publicity, which would crush the happiness of innocent persons, might be avoided?”

“It might,” said the lawyer, “but there would have to be very good and sufficient reasons. Let’s have the facts, Mr. Gard. An insane person, I take it, killed Mahr. Who?”

“His wife.” Gard had risen and stood towering above the others, his face set and hard as if carved in flint.

Field instinctively recoiled. “His wife!” he exclaimed. “Why, man alive, you are the madman. His wife died years ago.”

“No,” said Gard. “Teddy Mahr’s mother died. His wife is living, and is in that next room.”

“What’s the meaning of this?” Field demanded.

“A pretty plain meaning,” Gard rejoined. “The woman escaped from the asylum where she was confined. According to her own story, she had kept track of her husband from the newspapers. Mahr couldn’t divorce her, but he married again, secure in his belief that his first marriage would never be discovered. Mad as she was, she knew the situation, and she planned revenge. Dr. Malky, of the Ottawa Asylum, is here. We sent for him. The woman has been recognized by Mahr’s butler as the one he admitted. There is no possible doubt. And her own confession, while it is incomplete in some respects, is nevertheless undoubtedly true.

“But, Field, this woman is hopelessly demented. There is nothing that can be done for her. She must be returned to the institution. I want to keep the knowledge of her identity from Mahr’s son. Why poison the whole of his young life; why wreck his trust in his father? Convince yourself in every way, Mr. Field, but the part of mercy is a conspiracy of silence. Let it be known that an escaped lunatic did the killing a certain unknown Mrs. Welles and let Brencherly give the reporters all they want. For them it’s a good story, anyway such facts as these, for instance: he happened by in time to see an attack upon another woman on a bench opposite Mahr’s house, and to hear her boast of her acts. But I ask as a personal favor that the scandal be avoided. Brencherly, tell what happened.”

The detective looked up. “There was an old story our office had had it that Mahr was a bigamist. In searching for a motive for the crime, I hit on that. I had all our data on the subject sent up to me. I found that our informant stated that Mahr had a wife in an asylum somewhere. That gave me a suspicion. I found from headquarters that there were two escapes reported, and one was a woman. She had broken out of a private institution in Ottawa. I got word from there that her bills had been paid by a lawyer here Twickenbaur. I already knew that he was Mr. Mahr’s confidential lawyer. But all this I looked up later, after I’d found the woman. You see, Mr. Gard is employing me on another matter, and after he returned from Washington, I gave my report to him here.

“Then I went over to Mahr’s house. I had a curiosity to go over the ground. It was quite late at night, and I was standing in the dark, looking over the location of the windows, when I saw a woman acting strangely. She was threatening and talking loudly, crying out that she had a right to kill him. I sneaked up behind just in time to stop her attack on another woman who was seated on the same bench, and who seemed too ill to defend herself. Well, sir, I had to give her three hypos before I could take her along. Then I got her to my rooms, and when she came around, she told me the story. Of course, sir, you mustn’t expect any coherent narrative, though she is circumstantial enough. Then I brought over the butler, and he identified her at once. Mr. Gard advised me not to notify the police until he had seen you. We got the doctor from the asylum here as quickly as possible. He’s with her in there now.”

The attorney sat silent a moment, nodding his head slowly. “I’ll see her, Gard,” he said at length. “This is a strange story,” he added, as Brencherly disappeared into the anteroom.

Field’s eyes rested on Gard’s face with keen questioning, but he said nothing, for the door opened, admitting the black-clad figure of a middle-aged woman, escorted by a trained nurse and a heavily built man of professional aspect.

“This is ” Field asked, as his glance took in every detail of the woman’s appearance.

“Mrs. Welles, as she is known to us,” the doctor answered; “but she used to tell us that that was her maiden name, and she married a man named Mahr. We didn’t pay much attention to what she said, of course, but she was forever begging old newspapers and pointing out any paragraphs about Mr. Victor Mahr, saying she was his wife.”

Field gazed at the ghastly pallor of the woman’s face, the maze of wrinkles and the twinkling brightness of her shifting eyes, as she stood staring about her unconcernedly. Her glance happened upon Brencherly. Her lips began to twitch and her hands to make signals, as if anxious to attract his attention. She writhed toward him.

“Young man,” she whispered audibly, “they’ve got me I knew they would. Even you could not keep me so hidden they couldn’t find me.” She jerked an accusing thumb over her shoulder at the corpulent bulk of her erstwhile jailer. “They’ve been trying to make me tell how I got out; but I won’t tell. I may want to do it again, you see, and you won’t tell.”

“But,” said Brencherly soothingly, “you don’t want to get out now, you know. You’ve no reason to want to get out.”

She nodded, as if considering his statement seriously.

“Of course, since I’ve got Victor out of the way, I don’t much care. And I had awful trouble to steal enough money to get about with. Why, I had to pick ever so many pockets, and I do hate touching people; you never can tell what germs they may have.” She shook out her rusty black skirt as if to detach any possible contagion.

“But, why,” the incisive voice of the attorney inquired, “did you want to kill Victor Mahr?”

“Why?” she screamed, her body suddenly stiffening. “Suppose you were his wife, and he locked you up in places, and made people call you Mrs. Welles, while he went swelling around everywhere, and making millions! What’d you do? And besides, it wasn’t only that, you see. I knew, being his wife, that he was a devil oh, yes, he was; you needn’t look as if you didn’t believe it. But I soon learned that when I said I was ‘Mrs. Victor Mahr’ in the places he put me into, they laughed at me, the way they do at my roommate, who says she’s a sideboard and wants to hold a tea-set.”

“Tell these gentlemen how cleverly you traced him,” suggested Brencherly.

“Oh, I knew where he lived and what he was doing well enough.” She bridled with conscious conceit; “I read the papers and I had it all written down. So when I got out and stole the money, I knew just where to go. But he’s foxy, too. I knew I’d have to make him see me. So I stole some of the doctor’s letterhead paper, and I wrote on it, ’Important news from the Institution’ that’s what he likes to call his boarding house an institution.” She laughed. “It worked!” she went on as she regained her breath. “I just sent that message, and they let me go right in. ‘Well, what is it what is it?’ Victor said, just like that.” Her tones of mimicry were ghastly. She paused a moment, then broke out:

“Now you won’t believe it, but I hadn’t the slightest idea what I was going to kill him with when I went in there I really didn’t. The doctor will tell you himself that I’m awfully forgetful. But there, spread out before him, he had a whole collection of weapons, just as if he should say, ‘Mamie, which’ll you have?’ I couldn’t believe my eyes; so I said first thing, ‘Why, you were expecting me!’ He heard my voice, and his eyes opened wide; and I thought: ’If I don’t do it now, he’ll raise the house.’ So I grabbed the big pistol and hit him! I’m telling you gentlemen all this, because I don’t want anyone else to get the credit. There was a woman I met on a bench, and I just was sure she was going to take all the credit, but I told her that was my business. I hate people who think they can do everything. There’s a woman across my hall who says she can make stars ” She broke off abruptly as for the first time she became aware of Gard’s presence in the room. “Why, there you are!” she exclaimed delightedly. “Now, that’s good! You can tell these people what you found.”

“But Mr. Mahr was stabbed, Mrs. Welles,” Gard interrupted. “You said you struck him with a pistol.”

“Oh, I did that afterward.” She took up the thread of her narrative. “I selected the place very carefully, and pushed the knife way in tight. I hate the sight of blood, and I sort of thought that’d stop it, and it did. Then, dear me, I had a scare. There’s a picture in that room as live as life, and I looked up, and saw it looking at me. So I started to run out, but somebody was coming, so in the little room off the big one I got behind a curtain. Then this gentleman went through the room where I was, and into the room where he was. But he shut the door, and I couldn’t see what he thought of it. After a while he came out and said ‘good-night’ to me, though how he knew I was there I can’t guess. So I waited a very long time, till everything was quiet, and then I went back and sat with him. It did me good just to sit and look at him; and every little while I’d lift his coat to see if the little sword was still there. The room was awful messy, and I tidied it up a bit. Then when dawn about came, I got up and walked out. I had a sort of idea of getting back to the institution without saying anything, because I was afraid they’d punish me.”

“Why did you rob Mr. Mahr?” asked Mr. Field.

“Rob nothing!” she retorted.

“But his jewels, his watch,” the attorney continued, his eyes riveted on her face with compelling earnestness. The woman gave an inarticulate growl. “But,” interposed Brencherly, “I found his wallet in your package.” He took from his pocket a worn and battered leather pocketbook and held it toward her.

“Oh,” she answered indifferently, “I just took it for a souvenir. In fact, I came back for it last thing.”

Brencherly shrugged his shoulders expressively. Gard sat far back in his chair, his face in shadow.

“How long has it been, Mrs. Welles, since you accomplished your purpose?” he asked slowly.

“You know as well as I do,” she cried angrily.

“You were there. It was yesterday no, the day before.”

“It was just a week ago we found her,” Brencherly said in a low voice. “I had to look up everything and verify everything.”

“You don’t think I did it?” she burst out angrily. “Well, I’ll prove it. I tell you I did, and I thought it all out carefully, although the doctor says I can’t think connectedly. I’ll show him.” She fumbled in the breast of her dress for a moment, and brought out her cherished handful of newspaper clippings, which she cast triumphantly upon the table. “There’s all about him from the papers, and a picture of the house. Why, I’d ‘a’ been a fool not to find him, and I had to. Oh, yes, I suppose, as the doctor says, I’m queer; but I wasn’t when he first began sending me away no, indeed. I wasn’t good enough for him, that was all; and I was far from home, and hadn’t a friend, and he had money. Oh, he was clever but he’s the devil. He used to file his horns off so people wouldn’t see, but I know. So, I’ll tell you everything, except how I got away. There’s somebody else I may want to find.” She glanced with infinite cunning at Brencherly, and began her finger signals as if practicing a dumb alphabet of which he alone knew the key.

“Where did you receive her from, Doctor?” Field asked.

“From Ogdensburg, sir. Before that they told me she was found wandering, and put under observation in Troy. All I knew was that somebody wanted her kept in a private institution. She’d always been in one, I fancy.”

There was a pause as Field seemed lost in thought. Then he turned to Gard.

“May I ask you to clear one point?” he asked “You gave evidence that he was alive when you entered the room. According to her story

“I lied,” said Gard, his pale face suffused with color. “I had to I was most urgently needed in Washington. I would have been detained, perhaps prevented altogether from leaving. Who knows I might even have been accused. I plead guilty of suppressing the facts.”

There was silence in the room. The attorney’s eyes were turned upon the self-confessed perjurer. In them was a question. Gard met their gaze gravely, without flinching. Field nodded slowly.

“You’re right; publicity can only harm,” he said at last. “We will see what can be done. I’ll take the proper steps. It can be done legally and verified by the other witnesses. The butler identifies her, you say. It’s a curious case of retribution. I can’t help imagining Mahr’s feelings when he recognized her voice. Is your patient at all dangerous otherwise?” He addressed himself to the nurse.

“No,” she answered. “We’ve never seen it. Irritable, of course, but not vicious. I can’t imagine her doing such a thing. But you never can tell, sir not with this sort.”

Field again addressed Gard, whose admission seemed to have exhausted him. “And the son knows nothing?”

“Nothing,” answered Gard. “He worships his father’s memory. He is engaged, also, to a very dear little friend of mine the child of an old colleague. I want to shield them both.”

“I understand.” He nodded his head slowly, lost in thought.

The woman, childishly interested in the grotesque inkwells on the table, stepped forward and raised one curiously. Her bony hands, of almost transparent thinness, seemed hardly able to sustain the weight of the cast bronze. It was hard to believe such a birdlike claw capable of delivering a stunning blow, or forcibly wielding the deadly knife. She babbled for a moment in a gentle, not unpleasant voice, while they watched her, fascinated.

“She’s that way most of the time,” said the nurse softly. “Just like a ten-year-old girl plays with dolls, sir, all day long.”

Suddenly her expression changed. Over her smiling wrinkles crept the whiteness of death. Her eyes seemed to start from her head, her lips drew back, while her fingers tightened convulsively on the metal inkstand. The nurse, with an exclamation, stepped forward and caught her.

There was a gleam of such maniacal fury in the woman’s face that Mr. Field shuddered. “Hardly a safe child to trust even with a doll,” he said. “I fancy the recital has excited her. Hadn’t you better take her away and keep her quiet? And don’t let anyone unauthorized by Mr. Gard or myself have access to her. It will not be wise to allow her delusion that she was the wife of Victor Mahr to become known you understand?”

Mr. Gard rose stiffly. “I will assume the expense of her care in future. Let her have every comfort your institution affords, Dr. Malky. I will see you to-morrow.”

“Thank you, sir.” The physician bowed. “Good night. Come, Mrs. Welles.”

Obediently the withered little woman turned and suffered herself to be led away.

As the door closed, Field came forward and grasped Gard’s hand warmly. “It is necessary for the general good,” he said, his kindly face grown grave, “that this matter be kept as quiet as possible. Believe me, I understand, old friend; and, as always, I admire you.”

Gard’s weary face relaxed its strain. “Thanks,” he said hoarsely. “We can safely trust the press to Brencherly. He,” and he smiled wanly, “deserves great credit for his work. I’m thinking, Field, I need that young man in my business.”

Field nodded. “I was thinking I needed him in mine; but yours is the prior claim. And now I’m off. Mr. Brencherly, can I set you down anywhere?”

Confusedly the young man accepted the offer, hesitated and blushed as he held out his hand. “May I?”

Gard read the good-will in his face, the congratulation in the tone, and grasped the extended hand with a warm feeling of friendly regard.

“Good-night and, thank you both,” he said.