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have been struck down in the midst of fifteen or twenty people with no one the wiser? It's ridiculous, impossible!"

Burke squared his shoulders, with an almost unconscious suggestion of dignity.

"I am telling you the truth, sir!"

The Senator's glance dropped to his secretary's body and he looked up with a shudder. Then, as though with an effort, his eyes returned to the huddled form, and he stood staring down at the dead man, with a frown knitting his brow. Once he jerked his head toward the gardener with the curt question, "Who found him?"

Jenkins shambled forward uneasily. "I did, sir. I hope you don't think I disturbed the body?"

The Senator shrugged his shoulders impatiently. He did not raise his head again until the sound of a motor in the driveway broke the tension. The surgeon had arrived. Almost at the same moment there was a cry from Jenkins.

The gardener stood perhaps a half a dozen yards from the body, staring at an object hidden in the grass at his feet. He stooped and raised it. It was a woman's slipper!

As a turn of his head showed him the eyes of the group turned in his direction, he walked across to Senator Duffield, holding his find at arm's length,