"I am not insinuating, only asking a question. Bates thought he noticed a peculiar, strained situation at the dinner table. Since you and Bates rushed directly upstairs, and since that is the only means of reaching the second floor, it seems quite certain that she was killed by some one who is still in the house. There is no evidence of robbery. There were but five persons in the house--Sarbella, your stepmother, Joan Sheridan, Bates, and yourself. Unless we want to suspect Mrs. Gilmore or Joan----" "Oh, that's too absurd for words," broke in Gilmore, making no mention of having heard Joan's sobbing. "And that leaves Sarbella." The novelist beat his clenched hands against his knees. "Doctor, I tell you that you're wrong--wrong!" he cried. "Helen killed herself; there is no other explanation--none! I must tell you something; my wife asked me for a thousand dollars. She must have needed it desperately. Because I did not give it to her----What are you doing with that telephone?" Doctor Bushnell had picked up the instrument from the desk and lifted the receiver from the hook. "I am doing what I must do, Kirklan," he answered with quiet firmness. "I am calling the village police." CHAPTER XII "WIGGLY" PRICE The local police authority in the village of Ardmore was vested in the person of Mr. Hamilton Griggs, who held the office of constable, and whose most important duty was the enforcement of the municipality's automobile laws. Since the roads were exceptionally good, and since Constable Griggs received a fee of two dollars and fifty cents for each arrest resulting in a collected fine, he found the office fairly lucrative during the touring months. Constable Griggs--generally called "Ham" by way of brevity--was a widower and occupied with his daughter a neat, green-shuttered cottage on Hudson Street. His police equipment was a high-powered motor cycle, and his most profitable hours of patrol duty were between nightfall and a little past twelve, when automobilists were hurrying over the highways, probably feeling more secure in their breach of law under cover of darkness. It had been a good night for speeders, and "Ham" Griggs was mightily pleased with himself; an even ten arrests he had made, the fines had all been paid, and the neat sum of twenty-five dollars in fees reposed in a trousers pocket of his khaki uniform. At a quarter of one his motor cycle putt-putted stormily into the yard beside the cottage. He shut off the engine, locked the ignition, and, going to the rear of the house, let himself in through the unlocked kitchen door. Etta, his daughter, had set out a cold lunch for him, as was her custom, and the constable lost no time in "falling to." With a chuckle of satisfaction he took the little wad of crumpled bills from his pocket and tossed them to the top of the kitchen table, where he might enjoy the sight of them.