“Not precisely that, either. Everything is strictly within the limits of the law’s cognizance, Mr. Bain, as you will see. Now I’m going to make a long jump down to the present. If I fail to keep the trail clear, anywhere, you are any of you at liberty to interrupt me. First, then, I want you to follow with me the course of a figure that leaves Hedgerow House on the late afternoon of July fifth. By chance, the figure is not seen, except at a distance by Gansett Jim, who suspected nothing, then. Otherwise it would have been stopped, as it wears Mrs. Blair’s necklace and rings.” “Dressing the part of Astræa,” guessed Lawyer Bain. “Precisely. Our jeweled figure, in a dress that is an old one of Mrs. Blair’s, and with a package in hand, makes its way across country to the coast.” “To join me,” said Preston Jax. “To join you. Chance brings the wayfarer face to face with that gentleman of the peekaboo mind, Elder Dennett. They talk. The stranger asks—quite by chance, though the Elder assumed it was otherwise—about the home of Francis Sedgwick. At the entrance to Sedgwick’s place the pair met. There was a curious encounter, ending in Sedgwick’s demanding an explanation of the rose-topazes, which he knew to be Mrs. Blair’s.” “How did he know that?” demanded Alexander Blair. “Because I had worn them when I sat to him,” said Marjorie Blair quietly. “You sat to Sedgwick? For your picture? Why didn’t you tell me of this?” “No explanation was due you. It was a matter of chance, our acquaintance. Mr. Sedgwick did not even know who I was.” “Nor who his other visitor was, I suppose!” said Blair with a savage sneer. “No,” said Sedgwick, “nor do I know to this day.” “The stranger,” continued Kent, “refused to give Sedgwick any explanation, and when he threatened to follow, stunned him with a rock, and escaped. Some distance down the road the wayfarer encountered Simon P. Groot, the itinerant merchant. Sedgwick afterward met him and made inquiries, but obtained no satisfaction.” “Why was Mr. Sedgwick so eager to recover the trail, if he had not murder in his mind?” demanded Blair. “You are proceeding on the theory that Sedgwick, knowing who Mrs. Blair was, and who the strange visitor was, deliberately killed the latter for motives of his own. But Sedgwick can prove that he was back in his house by nine o’clock, and we have a witness here who was talking with the wearer of the necklace at that hour. Jax, let us have your statement.” Holding the copy of the confession in his hand, in case of confusion of memory, the Star-master told of his rendezvous, of the swift savage attack, of the appalling incident of the manacles, of the wild race across the heights, and of the final tragedy. “I’ve thought and wondered and figured, day and night,” he said, in conclusion, “and I can’t get at what that rope and the handcuffs meant.”