"You killed Taylor so you might marry his wife?" Garth shot at him.
The head jerked back and forth.
"Fortunately you did a rotten job with McDonald," Garth said. "Where's his daughter? I don't get that."
Reed shrank farther into the chair.
"I won't answer. You can't make me say any more."
Garth stooped, lifted the black cloth, and drew it clear of the bed beneath the mattress of which it had patently been hidden. As he held it up it fell in folds to the floor, and he saw it had sleeves and was a long garment without shape. But it recalled the black figure that had vanished from the attic. He ran his lamp over the gown. In spite of the coarse, tough material it was torn here and there, and on the right hand sleeve there were blood stains. That was why the gown had been hidden in the easiest place, the first place at hand. That undoubtedly explained Reed's daring intention to get the gown and destroy it before the body should be moved and the evidence discovered. Garth glanced at the man, who still shook, a picture of broken nerves, at the side of the bed. And Garth's hand, holding the tell-tale gown, commenced to tremble too, for it had offered him a solution of everything. He had no time for analysis. Already there were stirrings outside. Their voices and Nora's cry had aroused the others in the house.
"Don't you see it, Nora?" he cried, "and it wasn't intuition. The truth has stared at us from the first, but we wouldn't open our eyes."
"I see nothing," Nora said, "except that his motive was common enough, cheap enough."
"You don't understand," Garth smiled.
He stepped to the hall where he met Mrs. Taylor coming from her room.