“If it will make it easier for any one here to speak,” said Marjorie Blair, “I can say that I understand certain phases of my husband’s past life, thoroughly. There is no need to spare me on that ground.” “But this pertains to a phase that you do not understand at all.” “Yes, I think so,” she persisted gently. “This dead woman had some hold over my husband. To maintain it she came to live near Hedgerow House, and while she was blackmailing Wilfrid, she got into communication with Mr. Jax.” “Perhaps they were in collusion,” suggested Lawyer Bain. “Oh, no, no!” broke in Alexander Blair impatiently. “You’re wide of the truth.” “I understand,” persisted the young woman, “that the woman persuaded or compelled Wilfrid to write the letter to Mr. Jax, which she signed Astræa. And that, when she went to keep the rendezvous, she took my jewels, which, I suppose, she forced poor Wilfrid to steal for her. Am I not right, Professor Kent?” “No. Far from it.” “Why not?” cried Sedgwick eagerly. “She certainly had the jewels on when she met me. And the handcuffs must have been in the bundle. I heard them clink.” “Exactly; the handcuffs,” said Kent dryly. “What use, to your mind, would a woman of that sort have for manacles, in those circumstances?” “Yes,” put in Adam Bain: “they fit in about as nice as a pink silk hat at a funeral.” “I know what use she had for ’em,” muttered Preston Jax, caressing his wrist. “It’s simply a case of crazy woman; isn’t it, Professor Kent?” “No. Not if you mean that your assailant was a crazy woman,” said Kent patiently. “Then who, in heaven’s name, is or was Astræa?” cried Sedgwick. “Astræa is, I take it, a lady long since dead. A very strange and interesting lady who adopted that name for her own peculiar pursuits along our friend Jax’s lines of interest.” “They call themselves all sorts of things,” observed the astrologer philosophically. “I had a follower once that used to sign herself Carrie Nation, and she wasn’t the real Carrie at all. No name is sacred to ’em when they go dippy over the stars.” “Then the woman of Lonesome Cove borrowed that name from some old record?” asked Sedgwick.