"The police have an idea that Virginie Dupont could tell something of them." "Theft?" "Theft on the side." "Oh, pshaw!" said Jones, "what’s the good of complicating things? If theft was committed it was a frame-up, part of a plot." "You believe in this idea they’ve got in the village that Fowler and the French woman worked together?" "I do—to my mind the murderer’s marked as plain as Cain after he was branded on the brow or wherever it was." Then Jasper spoke up. He’s a nice quiet chap, not as fresh as the others. "Let’s hear what you base that assertion on." Jones forgot his supper and twisted round sideways in his chair, looking thoughtful up at the cornice: "As I understand it, in a murder two things are necessary—a crime and a corpse; and in a murderer one, a motive. Now we have all three—the motive especially strong. If Miss Hesketh married, her stepfather lost his home and the money he had been living on, so he tried to stop her from marrying. Saturday night he heard that his efforts had failed. I fancy that on Sunday morning when he went for that auto drive he stopped at some village—not as yet located—and communicated with Virginie Dupont, who was in his pay. She, too, went out that morning, you may remember." "There’s a good deal of surmise about this," said Babbitts. Jones gave him a scornful look. "If the links in the chain were perfect Dr. Fowler’d be eating his dinner to-night in Bloomington Jail." "How do you account for Miss Hesketh—presupposing it was she—being on the train instead of the turnpike?" said Jasper. "A change of plans," Jones answered calmly, "also not yet satisfactorily cleared up. To continue: Sometime on Sunday the Doctor conceived the plan of ridding himself of all his cares—his troublesome stepdaughter, the disturbance of his home and his financial distress. _How_," he turned and looked solemnly at us, fate played so well into his hands I can’t yet explain—the main point is that it did. He met Miss Hesketh at the Junction, either by threats, persuasion or coercion made her enter his auto and carried her up the road to the turnpike. "And now," said Babbitts, leaning his arms on the table, "we come to her appearance in the Wayside Arbor."