Page:Miss Madelyn Mack Detective.pdf/144

fourth motive,—the strongest spur to crime in the human mind!"

Senator Burroughs took his cigar from his mouth.

"I mean the motive of—fear!" Madelyn said abruptly, as she swept into the house. When I followed her, Senator Burroughs had walked over to the railing and stood staring down at the ground below. He had tossed his cigar away. In the room where we had breakfasted, one of the stable boys stood awkwardly awaiting Madelyn Mack's orders, while John Dorrence, the valet, was just laying a city directory on the table.

"Nora," she said, as she turned to the boy, "will you kindly look up the list of packing houses?"

"Pick out the largest and give me the address," she continued, as I ran my finger through the closely typed pages. With a growing curiosity, I selected a firm whose prestige was advertised in heavy letters. Madelyn's fountain pen scratched a dozen lines across a sheet of her note-book, and she thrust it into an envelope and extended it to the stable lad.

As the youth backed from the room, Senator Duffield appeared at the window.

"I presume it will be possible for me to see Mr. Rennick's body, Senator?" Madelyn Mack asked.

Our host bowed.