Again the room was silent, silent except for the choking sob which came from the man huddled low in the chair. After a moment he staggered to his feet and flung his arms wildly. "It's a lie!" he shouted. "It's a lie! I don't believe it; I'll never believe it. Why, if what you say is true, she----" "Calm yourself, Kirklan. Sarbella has admitted what I have told you. We might have never known the truth except that this young man recognized her and put us on the right track." Gilmore, for the first time, seemed aware of Wiggly Price's presence. "Who are you?" he demanded hoarsely. "What do you mean by coming here with these lies--about my wife? Answer me--who are you?" "My name is Price, and I am a newspaper man." Gilmore wheeled accusingly upon the doctor. "Who let him in?" he shouted. "Didn't I tell you----" "Easy, Kirklan, easy now. I can't answer as to how Price got into the house, but I'll say it's a lucky thing for us that he did. Except for him we might still be beating our heads against a stone wall. When you've calmed down you'll thank him instead of berating him. It may be that he is the agent who will bring your wife's murderer to justice. No matter what the woman did, a murder has been done; Sarbella had no right to take vengeance into his own hands." The novelist dropped limply back into the chair, his muscles twitching, as he stared at the sheet-covered body. "Sarbella?" he muttered thickly. "What--what does Sarbella say?" "Naturally he denies it," answered the doctor. "We hope to find proof. We must find proof; I doubt if he could be convicted on the purely circumstantial evidence that we have so far. Unless we can establish his ownership of the automatic pistol, we will have to find something else. If he thought the gun could be traced he surely would not have left it behind." Gilmore lifted his head slowly. "Then there is no proof--only--only suspicion?" He paused for a moment and then added: "I can't believe it! I can't believe that Sarbella killed her. And she--she was--that kind of a woman!" Doctor Bushnell touched his shoulder. "Try not to grieve, Kirklan," he urged quietly. "You were in love with the woman you thought her to be, and she did not exist. She wasn't worth a good man's grief. We do not even know--in fact, I doubt--if her marriage was legal." "I can't believe that Sarbella did it," repeated Gilmore dully. "She--she must have killed herself to escape the truth." "Did you happen to notice the brand of cigarettes that Sarbella smokes?" asked Wiggly Price. Gilmore's resentment against the newspaper man seemed to have vanished; he displayed no curiosity over this apparently idle question, only shook his head absently, like a man in a daze. "And your wife," pressed Wiggly, "I don't suppose that she used a cigarette now and then?" Again Gilmore shook his head, almost stupidly and without verbal response, his hands dangling inertly across the arms of the chair.