FullReads

She gave a low exclamation. She had found a packet of letters and a sheaf of typewritten flimsy tissue paper pages.

Mrs. Douglas uttered a little cry, quickly suppressed. The letters were those in her own handwriting addressed to Lynn Munro.

“Here are Drummond’s reports, too,” Constance added.

She looked them hastily over. The damning facts had been massed in a way that must inevitably have prejudiced any case for the defense that Mrs. Douglas might set up.

“There–there’s all the evidence against you,” whispered Constance hoarsely, handing it over to Anita. “It’s all yours again. Destroy it”

In her eagerness, with trembling hands, Anita had torn up the whole mass of incriminating papers and had cast them into the fireplace. She was just about to strike a match.

Suddenly there came a deep voice from the stairs.

“Well–what’s all this?”

Anita dropped the match from her nerveless hands. Constance felt an arm grasp her tightly. For a moment a chill ran over her at being caught in the nefarious work of breaking and entering a dwelling- house at night. The hand was Anita’s, but the voice was that of a man.

Lights flashed all over the house at once, from a sort of electric light system that could be instantly lighted and would act as a “burglar expeller.”

It was Douglas himself. He was staring angrily at his wife and the stranger with her.

“Well!” he demanded with cold sarcasm. “Why this–this burglary?”

Before he could quite take in the situation, with a quick motion, Constance struck a match and touched it to the papers in the fireplace.

As they blazed up he caught sight of what they were and almost leaped across the floor.

Constance laid her hand on his arm. “One moment, Mr. Douglas,” she said quietly. “Look at that!”

“Who–who the devil are you?” he gasped. “What’s all this?”

“I think,” remarked Constance slowly and quietly, “that your wife is now in a position to prove that you–well, don’t come into court with clean hands, if you attempt to do so. Besides, you know, the courts rather frown on detectives that practice collusion and conspiracy and frame up evidence, to say nothing of trying to blackmail the victims. I thought perhaps you’d prefer not to say anything about this–er–visit to-night–after you saw that.”

Constance had quietly laid one of the erased checks on the library table. Again she dipped the sponge into the brownish liquid. Again the magic touch revealed the telltale name. With her finger she was pointing to the faintly legible “Helen Brett” on the check as the sulphide had brought it out.

Douglas stared-dazed.

He rubbed his eyes and stared again as the last of the flickering fire died away. In an instant he realized that it was not a dream, that it was all a fact.

He looked from one to the other of the women.

He was checkmated.

Constance ostentatiously folded up the erased vouchers.

“I–I shall not–make any–contest,” Douglas managed to gasp huskily.