“Oh, not lots of cases,” objected Stone, “but the few that do occur are usually tragic and dramatic and fill a front page for a few days. Now, let’s sift down this remarkably definite statement of ‘motives and opportunities’ that your eminent detectives have catalogued. I’m told that they’ve two people with motive and no opportunity; two more with opportunity and no motive; and one--Mrs. Embury--who fulfills both requirements! Quite an elaborate schedule, to be sure!” Eunice looked at him with a glimmer of hope. Surely a man who talked like that didn’t place implicit reliance on the schedule in question. “And yet,” Stone went on, “it is certainly true. A motive is a queer thing--an elusive, uncertain thing. They say--I have this from the detectives themselves-that Mr. Hendricks and Mr. Elliott both had the motive of deep affection for Mrs. Embury. Please don’t be offended, I am speaking quite impersonally, now. Mr. Hendricks, I am advised, also had a strong motive in a desire to remove a rival candidate for an important election. But--neither of these gentlemen had opportunity, as each has proven a perfect and indubitable alibi. I admit the alibis--I’ve looked into them, and they are unimpeachable--but I don’t admit the motives. Granting a man’s affection for a married woman, it is not at all a likely thing for him to kill her husband.” “Right, Mr. Stone!” and Mason Elliott’s voice rang out in honest appreciation. “Again, it is absurd to suspect one election candidate of killing another. It isn’t done--and one very good reason is, that if the criminal should be discovered, he has small chance for the election he coveted. And there is always a chance--and a strong one--that ‘murder will out’! So, personally, I admit I don’t subscribe entirely to the cut-and-dried program of my esteemed colleagues. Now, as to these two people with opportunity but no motive. They are, I’m told, Miss Ames and the butler. Very well, I grant their opportunity--but since they are alleged to have no motive, why consider them at all? This brings us to Mrs. Embury.” Eunice was watching the speaker, fascinated. She had never met a man like this before. Though Stone’s manner was by no means flippant, he seemed to take a light view of some aspects of the case. But now, he looked at Eunice very earnestly. “I am informed,” he went on, slowly, “that you have an ungovernable temper, Mrs. Embury.” “Nothing of the sort!” Eunice cried, tossing her head defiantly and turning angry eyes on the bland detective. “I am supposed to be unable to control myself, but it is not true! As a child I gave way to fits of temper, I acknowledge, but I have overcome that tendency, and I am no more hot-tempered now than other people!”