for heart trouble. How" - she looked at him queerly. "How is it
administered?"

"By crushing a capsule in a handkerchief and inhaling its fumes "
- he was watching her closely. "The handkerchief Jimmie was seen
to use just before he died was found to contain two or more broken
capsules."

Helen sat immovable for over a minute, then she bowed her head and
burst into dry tearless sobs which wracked her body. Kent laid a
tender hand on her shoulder, then concluding it was better for her
to have her cry out, he wandered aimlessly about the office waiting
for her to regain her composure.

He stopped before one of the windows facing south and stared moodily
at the Belasco Theater. That playhouse had surely never staged a
more complicated mystery than the one he had set himself to unravel.
What consolation could he offer Helen? If he encouraged her belief
in his theory that Jimmie committed suicide he would have to
establish a motive for suicide, and that motive might prove to be
the theft of Colonel McIntyre's valuable securities. Threatened
with exposure as a thief and forger, Jimmie had committed suicide,
so would run the verdict; the fact of his suicide was proof of his
guilt of the crime Colonel McIntyre virtually charged him with, and
vice versa.

What had been discovered to point to murder? The finding of a
handkerchief, saturated with amyl nitrite, which had not belonged
to the dead man. Proof - bah! it was ridiculous! What more likely
than that Jimmie, while in the McIntyre house before his arrest as