My mind worked rapidly, but McCormick blurted out the words before
I could form them, "Caught in her own trap at last!"
Kennedy said nothing, but as one of the firemen roughly but reverently covered the remains with a rubber sheet, he stooped down and withdrew from the breast of the woman a long letter-file. "Come, let us go," he said.
Back in our apartment again we bathed our racking heads, gargled our parched throats, and washed out our bloodshot eyes, in silence. The whole adventure, though still fresh and vivid in my mind, seemed unreal, like a dream. The choking air, the hissing steam, the ghastly object under the tarpaulin - what did it all mean? Who was she? I strove to reason it out, but could find no answer.
It was nearly dawn when the door opened and McCormick came in and dropped wearily into a chair. "Do you know who that woman was?" he gasped. " It was Miss Wend herself."
"Who identified her?" asked Kennedy calmly.
"Oh, several people. Stacey recognised her at once. Then Hartstein, the adjuster for the insured, and Lazard, the adjuster for the company, both of whom had had more or less to do with her in connection with settling up for other fires, recognised her. She was a very clever woman, was Miss Wend, and a very important cog in the Stacey enterprises. And to think she was the firebug, after all. I can hardly believe it."
"Why believe it?" asked Kennedy quietly.
"Why believe it?" echoed McCormick. "Stacey has found shortages in his books due to the operation of her departments. The bookkeeper who had charge of the accounts in her department, a man named Douglas, is missing. She must have tried to cover up her operations by fires and juggling the accounts. Failing in that she tried to destroy Stacey's store itself, twice. She was one of the few that could get into the office unobserved. Oh, it's a clear case now. To my mind, the heavy vapours of ether - they are heavier than air, you know - must have escaped along the surface of the floor last night and become ignited at a considerable distance from where she expected. She was caught in a back-draught, or something of the sort. Well, thank God, we've seen the last of this firebug business. What's that?"
Kennedy had laid the letter-file on the table. "Nothing. Only I found this embedded in Miss Wend's breast right over her heart."
"Then she was murdered?" exclaimed McCormick.