“I was on the wrecked train, in the same car with Mrs. Curtis, Miss West and Mr. Sullivan. During the night there was a crime committed in that car and Mr. Sullivan disappeared. But he left behind him a chain of circumstantial evidence that involved me completely, so that I may, at any time, be arrested.” Apparently she did not comprehend for a moment. Then, as if the meaning of my words had just dawned on her, she looked up and gasped: “You mean—Mr. Sullivan committed the crime himself?” “I think he did.” “What was it?” “It was murder,” I said deliberately. Her hands clenched involuntarily, and she shrank back. “A woman?” She could scarcely form her words. “No, a man; a Mr. Simon Harrington, of Pittsburg.” Her effort to retain her self-control was pitiful. Then she broke down and cried, her head on the back of a tall chair. “It was my fault,” she said wretchedly, “my fault, I should not have sent them the word.” After a few minutes she grew quiet. She seemed to hesitate over something, and finally determined to say it. “You will understand better, sir, when I say that I was raised in the Harrington family. Mr. Harrington was Mr. Sullivan’s wife’s father!” CHAPTER XXV. AT THE STATION So it had been the tiger, not the lady! Well, I had held to that theory all through. Jennie suddenly became a valuable person; if necessary she could prove the connection between Sullivan and the murdered man, and show a motive for the crime. I was triumphant when Hotchkiss came in. When the girl had produced a photograph of Mrs. Sullivan, and I had recognized the bronze-haired girl of the train, we were both well satisfied—which goes to prove the ephemeral nature of most human contentments. Jennie either had nothing more to say, or feared she had said too much. She was evidently uneasy before Hotchkiss. I told her that Mrs. Sullivan was recovering in a Baltimore hospital, but she already knew it, from some source, and merely nodded. She made a few preparations for leaving, while Hotchkiss and I compared notes, and then, with the cat in her arms, she climbed into the trap from the town. I sat with her, and on the way down she told me a little, not much. “If you see Mrs. Sullivan,” she advised, “and she is conscious, she probably thinks that both her husband and her father were killed in the wreck. She will be in a bad way, sir.” “You mean that she—still cares about her husband?” The cat crawled over on to my knee, and rubbed its head against my hand invitingly. Jennie stared at the undulating line of the mountain crests, a colossal sun against a blue ocean of sky. “Yes, she cares,” she said softly. “Women are made like that. They say they are cats, but Peter there in your lap wouldn’t come back and lick your hand if you kicked him. If—if you have to tell her the truth, be as gentle as you can, sir. She has been good to me—that’s why I have played the spy here all summer. It’s a thankless thing, spying on people.”