“No, I just got here,” De Medici said. “I mean did you see her last night?” De Medici stared at the detective. “Of course I saw her last night ... here. You were here....” “I mean after our little party here,” Norton went on. “After I left?” De Medici began and paused. “Yes.” Norton’s wearied eyes confused him. After he had left? Then.... “Where is Miss Ballau?” he cried. “Well, as I said before,” Norton answered, “I owe you an apology. We let her go almost immediately after you and the doctor left. The case against her has collapsed. That is, so far as her actual guilt is concerned. That’s why I called you over last night. I thought you might fill in the missing links.” De Medici’s face remained without expression but his thoughts were circling wildly once more. Norton was still talking. “It was a mistake to arrest her at all. I felt from the beginning that we were acting too hastily. But the burned note sort of decided things for me ... for a little while. But—there were too many unexplained things ... too many ends. So we let her go. It’s the only way. She knows something and it’s impossible to get it out of her here. We’ve got a better chance waiting for her to lead us to the man or woman who murdered Ballau. She’s shielding someone. I could see it last night....” “Where is she now?” De Medici interrupted tensely. Lieutenant Norton shrugged his shoulders. “I think my men will locate her before the day is over,” he answered with bitterness. “But she eluded us after we let her go. That idiot Michaelson....” “You lost track of her?” De Medici murmured. “Yes,” Norton swore, “she went out of here and ... that’s all.” “I see,” said De Medici. He stood up and forgetting to say good-by to the man, walked slowly out of the office. Norton stared after him. In the street De Medici paused. “He’ll send somebody to follow me,” he mused. “He thinks I know where she is ... and know more than I’ve told.... He let her go.... Then he must suspect someone else. Me, perhaps.” He smiled wryly. His thought took another turn. He had withheld the thing from his mind. It came now swiftly and in detail.... “It was Florence,” he muttered. A chill came over him. He walked slowly, speculations and conjectures dancing in his brain. “If he’d only held her till this morning,” he mused desperately, “her innocence would have been established. But now ... good God! a few hours after her release from the cell I am attacked by Floria ... as Ballau was attacked. Yes, it was she. I remember something. What? What? Hm, it’s too inhuman. Florence creeping into my room to murder me! Two weeks ago she kissed me. It’s insane ... a bewildering circle ... Ballau’s body with a dagger in its heart, a dance of lunatic clews and macabre evasions which seem to be ending as insanely as they began. Now we come to another arc in this circle. She tried to murder me last night. Why?... Ah!”