“I was beside myself and didn’t know what to do. It seemed that all I’d been through was now for nothing. Poor mother was alone, crazed and wandering. God knew where. And I started walking distractedly in the street not knowing what to do first or where to go, when Dr. Lytton stopped me. When I saw him I felt that it was all over, that he knew everything. But when he began to talk to me I noticed at once it was I he suspected. He thought I was the insane one, the double ego and all that. And I listened to what he said. It was easy to take him in.” Here she smiled and De Medici found it suddenly difficult to suppress a laugh. The vision of the didactic scientist and his arbitrary conclusions, his subsequent discomfiture and good sportsmanship in admitting his innumerable errors, lightened the mood between them. “That night she came here,” smiled De Medici, “and I knew, when I saw you beside Dr. Lytton on his return from Rollo, that he’d blundered. That is, I suspected it. There was another suspicion, but we’ll not discuss that any more.” “I know.” Florence looked tenderly at him. “Dr. Lytton told me. Anyway, after he’d talked to me in the village hotel I improvised a story that fitted in with his theories. My chief idea was to get him out of Rollo. I was all to pieces. All I could think of was that I had to keep him from finding out about mother at the sanitarium. And when he wanted me to confess, I confessed. It seemed to cheer him up a great deal.” “Yes,” said De Medici, “he’s a terrible man to argue with. But the truth dawned on me—about her—as we were coming up here from the train. It struck me as if it had been something I had known from the first. Merely that there had been only one other person in your home at the time he was killed and that this person had been Jane. And when I thought this, it all straightened out. I knew your mother had been an actress. I knew you were protecting your mother. And I knew she had killed poor Victor. And knowing all this, it cleared up suddenly when I thought of Jane. There was only one thing. The murder ritual ... out of a play. I surmised that in the next few minutes while Dr. Lytton was holding forth on your guilt. I couldn’t place the play until I saw her come in the room. And then La Tosca showed itself in my head. I had read and witnessed the thing a score of times and was familiar with most of the scenes.” Florence rose and moved to a window. De Medici, beside her, placed his arm about her shoulders. “There is only one mystery left,” he murmured. She turned shining eyes to him. “You,” he said, “and this thing in my heart that makes life incomplete without you.” [Illustration: {uncaptioned}] THE END Transcriber’s Notes --Copyright notice provided as in the original—this e-text is public domain in the country of publication.