A few moments later Mr. Cummack appeared upon the threshold.

"Nothin' doin'," he said gruffly. "Old Dutch's got a perfect alibi. Been behind the bar since six o'clock. It's up to us now to find out if he hired a gunman; and we're on the trail of others too. Poor Dave had his enemies all right."

He paused and looked tentatively at his weary but heroic sister-in-law. His own face was haggard, and the walrus moustache he had brought out of the North-west was covered not only with dust but with little moist islands made by furtive tears. With that exquisite sympathy and comprehension that men have for the failings of other men, which far surpasseth that of woman, he had loved his imperfect friend, but he had a profound admiration for his sister-in-law, whom he neither loved nor pretended to understand.[Pg 62] He knew her surfaces, however, as well as any one, and would have been deeply disappointed if she had carried herself in this trying hour contrary to her usual high standard of conduct. Enid Balfame, indeed, was almost a legend in Elsinore, and into this legend she could retire as into a fortress, practically impregnable.

[Pg 62]

"Say, Enid," he said hesitatingly. "These reporters—the New York chaps—the local men wouldn't dare ask—want an interview. What do you say?"

Mrs. Balfame merely turned her haughty head and regarded him with icy disdain. "Are they crazy? Or you?"

"Well, not the way they look at it. You see, it's up to them to fill a column or two every morning, and there's nothing touches a new crime with a mystery. So far, they haven't got much out of this but the bare fact that poor Dave was shot down at his own gate, presumably by some one hid in the grove. An interview with the bereaved widow would make what they call a corking story."

"Tell them to go away at once." She leaned back against her chair and closed her eyes. Mrs. Gifning flew to hold the salts to her nose.

"Better see them," persisted Mr. Cummack. "They'll haunt the house till you do. They're crazy about this case—hasn't been a decent murder for months, nothin' much doin' in any line, and everybody sick of the war. The Germans take a trench in the morning papers and lose it in the evening—"

"Sam Cummack! How dare you joke at a time[Pg 63] like this?" His wife ran forward and attempted to push him out of the room, and the other ladies had risen and faced him with 

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