"Did she ever wear men's clothes?"
"Yes," said the girl. "The last time I saw her she had on Mackinaws, felt hat, heavy lace boots—"
Dexter's eyes gleamed in excitement. "She's the one!" He spoke with utter conviction, as one who knows the truth at last.
"It was Mrs. Stark's voice I heard that night, talking on a telephone. It was she who masqueraded as a man and ambushed Constable Graves. She was the one I trailed to the cabin and arrested there, with Mudgett. It was she whom I found dead in the upper bunk!"
CHAPTER XXXIX
YOU NEVER CAN TELL
For a moment Devreaux and Alison stared at Dexter as though they were not quite sure whether he had taken leave of his senses. There was a suggestion of a smile on his lips as he faced them in the failing twilight.
"All of which explains why Stark hated me so," he remarked after an interval of silence. "He knew it was I who had arrested his wife, and he could not help blaming me for the tragic circumstances that came afterwards."
"Wait!" expostulated the colonel. "You say that the one who was shot in the upper bunk was a woman in man's clothes—Mrs. Stark—and that there was nobody in the cabin when the shooting took place but her and Mudgett?"
"Yes," insisted Dexter serenely. "The record in the snow outside the cabin showed that no one entered or left the place during my short absence. No one else could have been there." He shook his head in self-depreciation. "The explanation has struck me all in a heap with the discovery of this hidden telephone system. I should have seen it long ago. The facts were all there before me the night of the double killing. But Alison's appearance on the scene confused the facts, and I was led away from the simple and obvious solution of the affair—the only possible solution."