that Alys Crumley was not only sweet of temper and frank, if not candid, but that in spite of all her desperate modernism she cherished high ideals of conduct; and here she was turning loose the cat that skulks somewhere in every commonplace female's nature.

But the whole conversation had left his mind promptly. He had attached no significance whatever to a ten minutes' walk between a polite man and a woman returning alone from a friend's house on a dark night.

Now every word of the conversation came back to him. Rush, he gathered, had gone to the Crumley house several times a week for a while, and then, for reasons known only to himself and Alys, had ceased his visits abruptly. Had she fallen in love with him? Or was it only her vanity that was wounded? And if[Pg 122] Rush had dropped a girl as pretty and bright and winning as Alys Crumley—who improved upon acquaintance, moreover—what was the reason? Why had he not fallen in love with her? Had he loved some one else?

[Pg 122]

Broderick swung his mind to the morning following the murder, when he had met Rush in the hall of the Elsinore Hotel. The lawyer professed himself as delighted to "run up against him" and invited him to breakfast. All this had been natural enough, and it was equally natural that the conversation should have but one theme.

Once more Broderick sought a fugitive impression and found it. Rush, who was a master of words when verbal exactness was imperative, had created an impression in his companion's mind of the impeccability of the murdered man's widow.

Broderick had wondered once or twice since whence came that mental picture of Mrs. Balfame that rose clear-cut in his memory, in spite of his deliberate conviction of her guilt. Other people had raved about her and made no impression upon the young reporter's selective and somewhat cynical mind; but Rush had almost accomplished his purpose!

Why had he sought to accomplish it?

Broderick had known Rush in and out of court for nearly two years. Whenever he had been on an assignment in that part of Brabant County he had made a point of seeking him out, and even of spending an evening with him if he could afford the time. He liked the unique blend of East and West in the man; to Broderick's keen appraising mind Rush reflected the very best of the two great rival bisections of the nation. He[Pg 123] liked the mixture of frankness and subtlety, of simple 

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