"Good morning, Sergeant. Have you seen the chief?"
Odell nodded.
"Just came from him. He said that you succeeded in searching Miss Meade's room and her sister's, but you found no opportunity to get into the one occupied by the younger Chalmers boy."
"I did this morning, not an hour ago. He kept to his room all day yesterday, but to-day he went down to breakfast, and that was my chance," Taylor replied eagerly. "I didn't find anything in his room except clothes and books; there wasn't so much as a single letter lying around, and his fountain pen looked as if it hadn't been used for months.
"I reckon he doesn't do much but read, for I never saw so many books in my life outside of a library; they're overflowing the bookcases and piled up in the corners of the room, and a lot of them are on medical subjects. There were a couple of extra braces, too, for his back; and the shelves and cabinet in his private bathroom were stacked with medicine-bottles.
"I was in there giving them the once over when he came up from breakfast, and I swung the door quick within an inch of closing just as he opened the other door leading from the hall, for I'd heard that high whining voice of his, and I knew he wasn't alone. I only caught the end of a sentence first:—'only keep you a minute.' Then a woman's voice said quietly: 'Yes, sir.' It was that maid Gerda, and she spoke in a kind of a hushed way as if she were waiting for something to fall.
"‘I've known for the last month'—young Chalmers finished with something so low I couldn't hear; but the
