"He did. He did. It was Clayte—the wonder man!"
"Do—do you deduce that, Barbara?"
"Did I?" she raised to mine the face of a sick child. "I must have. See—it's here on the blotter: 'y-t-e,' that's Clayte. Double l-e-r; that's 'teller,' 'Avenue' is part of 'Van Ness Avenue Bank.' Oh, yes; I deduced it, I suppose. Both crimes end in a locked room and a perfect alibi. But—but—don't you see, if it is true—and it is—it is—we're worse off than we were before. We've the wonder man against us."
"Barbara," I cried. "Barbara, come out of it!"
"See? You don't believe in me any more," and her head went down on the table.
I let her cry, while I sat and thought. The broken sentences she'd sobbed out to me began to fit up like a puzzle-game. By all theories of good detective work, I should have seen from the first the similarity of these crimes. But Clayte, slipping in here to do this murder—and why? What mixed him up with affairs here? And then the icy pang—Dykeman had seen a connection—Cummings had found one. With them, it was Clayte and his gang—and his gang was Worth Gilbert. I went and touched Barbara on the shoulder.
"I'm going to take you home now."
"Yes," tears running down her face as she stumbled to her feet. "I'm a failure. I can't do anything for Worth."
I wiped her cheeks with my own handkerchief and led her out. As I turned from locking the door, it seemed to me I saw something move in the shrubbery. I asked Barbara Wallace about it. She hadn't noticed anything. Barbara Wallace hadn't noticed anything!
I began to be scared for her. Solemn in the sky above boomed out the town clock—two strokes. Half past nine. I must get this poor child home. We were getting in toward the noise and the light when I felt her shiver, and stopped to say,