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made his death-blow the quicker and the surer, were questions that only deepened the horror of the noon-day crime.

As though to emphasize the hour, the mahogany clock in Senator Duffield's library rang out its twelve monotonous chimes as John Dorrence, his valet, beat sharply on the door. The echo of the nervous tattoo was lost in an unanswering silence. Dorrence repeated his knock before he brought an impatient response from beyond the panels.

"Can you come, sir?" the valet burst out. "Something awful has happened, sir. It's, it's—"

The door was flung open. A ruddy-faced man with thick, white hair and grizzled moustache, and the hints of a nervous temperament showing in his eyes and voice, sprang into the hall. Somebody once remarked that Senator Duffield was Mark Twain's double. The Senator took the comparison as a compliment, perhaps because it was a woman who made it.

Dorrence seized his master by the sleeve, which loss of dignity did more to impress the Senator with the gravity of the situation than all of the servant's excitable words.

"Mr. Rennick, sir, has been stabbed, sir, on the lawn, and Miss Beth, sir—"

Senator Duffield staggered against the wall. The valet's alarm swerved to another channel.