“I fancy you’re right,” and Stone, half absent-mindedly, “but opinions as to what people can or can’t do, are of not much real use.” “Have you a theory?” “Yes, I have a theory, but the facts don’t fit it—and it seems as if they could not be made to. Yet it’s a good theory.” “You don’t care to tell it to me?” “Why, I’m willing to do so. My theory is that John Waring committed suicide, but I can’t make any facts bear me out. You see, it’s not only the absence of a weapon, but all absence of motive, and even of opportunity.” “Surely he had opportunity—in here alone.” “It can’t be opportunity if he had no implement handy. And nothing can explain away the missing weapon, and the locked room, on the suicide theory.” “What can explain the locked room, on a murder theory?” Lockwood asked. “I haven’t thought of anything as yet. What book was Doctor Waring reading that night?” “There were several on his desk, but the one that was found nearest the body, the one stained with blood, is a copy of Martial’s Epigrams.” “May I see it, please?” Lockwood brought the book and Fleming Stone examined it carefully. It was not a rare or finely bound edition, it seemed more a working copy or a book for reference. It was printed in Latin. “He was fond of Martial?” asked Stone. “He was a reader of all the classics. He preferred them, of course, in their original Latin or Greek. He was also a modern linguist.” Stone opened the volume to the stained page, which was numbered 87. He studied it closely. “It’s all Greek to me,” he said, frowning, “even though it’s Latin, but I hoped to read something on the page beside the printed text.” However, the irregularly shaped red blur gave him no clue, and he returned the book to Lockwood. “Had the Doctor any private accounts?” the detective asked suddenly. “Not that I know of,” replied the secretary. “He was a man of singularly few secrets, and I was always at liberty to open all letters, and had free access to his desk and safe. I never knew him to hide or secrete a paper of any sort.” “No harm in looking,” Stone said, and began forthwith to search the desk drawers and compartments. The search was fruitless, until at length, a small checkbook was found. And a curious revelation it gave them. For of its blank checks but one had been torn out, and the remaining stub gave the information that it was a check for ten thousand dollars drawn to the order of Anita Austin. Those who looked at it stared incredulously. “It is dated,” Stone said, “the date that Doctor Waring died.” It was. Had this too, been given to the strange young woman, whom Stone was beginning to designate to himself by the title of adventuress? Was it possible that young girl, who seemed scarce more than a child, had some how maneuvered to get all this from a man whom she had deliberately fascinated and infatuated? It was incredible—yet what else could be assumed?