"Didn't think old Amos had that much fire in him," commented John Quincy, as they found chairs on the lanai. "A rather anemic specimen, judging by the look I had at him this morning. But then, the Winterslips always were good haters." For a moment they sat in silence. Outside the darkness was deepening rapidly, the tropic darkness that had brought tragedy the night before. John Quincy pointed to a small lizard on the screen. "Pleasant little beast," he said. "Oh, they're quite harmless," Miss Minerva told him. "And they eat the mosquitos." "They do, eh?" The boy slapped his ankle savagely. "Well, there's no accounting for tastes." Amos arrived presently, looking unusually pale in the half-light. "You asked me to come over, Minerva," he said, as he sat down gingerly on one of Dan Winterslip's Hong-Kong chairs. "I did. Smoke if you like." Amos lighted a cigarette, which seemed oddly out of place between his thin lips. "I'm sure," Miss Minerva continued, "that we are all determined to bring to justice the person who did this ghastly thing." "Naturally," said Amos. "The only drawback," she went on, "is that in the course of the investigation some rather unpleasant facts about Dan's past are likely to be revealed." "They're bound to be," remarked Amos coldly. "For Barbara's sake," Miss Minerva said. "I'm intent on seeing that nothing is revealed that is not absolutely essential to the discovery of the murderer. For that reason, I haven't taken the police completely into my confidence." "What!" cried Amos. John Quincy stood up. "Now look here, Aunt Minerva--" "Sit down," snapped his aunt. "Amos, to go back to a talk we had at your house when I was there, Dan was somewhat involved with this woman down the beach. Arlene Compton, I believe she calls herself." Amos nodded. "Yes, and a worthless lot she is. But Dan wouldn't see it, though I understand his friends pointed it out to him. He talked of marrying her." "You knew a good deal about Dan, even if you never spoke to him," Miss Minerva went on. "Just what was his status with this woman at the time of his murder--only last night, but it seems ages ago." "I can't quite tell you that," Amos replied. "I do know that for the past month a malihini named Leatherbee--the black sheep of a good family in Philadelphia, they tell me--has been hanging around the Compton woman, and that Dan resented his presence." "Humph." Miss Minerva handed to Amos an odd old brooch, a tree of jewels against an onyx background. "Ever see that before, Amos?" He took it, and nodded. "It's part of a little collection of jewelry Dan brought back from the South Seas in the 'eighties. There were ear-rings and a bracelet, too. He acted rather queerly about those trinkets--never let Barbara's mother or any one else wear them. But he must have got over that idea recently. For I saw this only a few weeks ago." "Where?" asked Miss Minerva.