"The dead man's brother, Richard H. Dongan, vice-president of the Barrow Trust Company, was notified, and at his suggestion a hasty search of the books of Dongan and Counsell was conducted for the purpose of establishing a possible motive for the crime. The firm was found to be heavily involved owing to certain speculations of the junior partner on the exchange. By the break in Union Central last week Counsell stood to lose seventy-five thousand dollars, which apparently he had no means of raising. It is supposed that he appealed to his partner for help, and upon being indignantly refused, shot the elder man. The case against Counsell was made complete when Thomas Dittmars, bookkeeper to Dongan and Counsell, reluctantly identified the revolver as one belonging to Counsell, and pointed out Counsell's initials scratched on the butt. The bookkeeper knew the weapon because more than once it had been loaned to him when he had a large amount of Liberty bonds to deliver for the firm. Dittmars knew nothing of the transactions in Union Central because they were entered in the firm's private ledger to which only the partners had access. No trace of Counsell has been discovered since he left the hotel." Thus far the summary of facts which heads all newspaper stories. Several columns of comment and hypothesis followed: "On the face of it it is one of the most dastardly crimes in recent years. Dongan befriended the young man upon his graduation from college and admitted him to a partnership in his business only to be swindled and finally to be shot down by his protégé." Pen for the moment disregarded what followed. She had to stop and think, she would have said, but as a matter of fact she was incapable of thinking. She was conscious only of a dull horror that numbed her faculties. She had not yet taken it in. Outwardly she was quite composed. With the palm of her hand she thoughtfully polished a dull spot on the velvety surface of the table. Pendleton fairly babbled in his excitement. "When I first read the story he was in the drawing-room with you. I didn't know what to do! I didn't know what to do!" Pen was sharply recalled to the necessity for action. "Well, what are you going to do?" she asked quietly. "My duty," said the little man swelling a little. "Inform against him?" "Inform? What a word to use!" said Pendleton with asperity. "I mean to give him up to justice as he richly deserves." "But he didn't do it," said Pen with an odd, detached air. The words came out of her involuntarily. Pendleton stared. "How do you know?" "By instinct," she said simply. "Fiddlesticks!" said Pendleton. "You read the paper, didn't you?" Pen merely smiled the smile that women use when they decline to argue with a man. It is very exasperating to a man. "You have seen the man once and exchanged a few pleasantries with him!" he cried. "Do you presume to decide from that whether or not he is capable of murder?"