What became apparent now, however, was that the trapdoor had served other ends than that of legitimate café service. What could be easier than to inveigle a man into the room and get rid of him through the cellar door? As for the disposal of the body, that, too, was quaintly provided for and covered by Ferrati’s business. Every morning, just at dawn, the restaurant garbage was carted away. It was not difficult to carry other and more ghastly things away at the same time; and the road is lonely at that hour. A couple of discreet henchmen could quite easily drop something over the cliffs in the direction of the river. But, after all, this was a secondary matter for the moment. The great thing was that they knew now who had fired the seventh shot. It only remained to find out how it had been done, for even after Kitty had admitted it, the thing seemed impossible from the facts which they had securely established. She did not in the least mind telling them about it. She told her story with simplicity and directness. In her curious, calculating little head there was not the slightest trace of regret or remorse for what she had done. Barrison, watching her, remembered his talk with Wrenn, and seemed to descry in the daughter the same strange bias he had noted in the father; the same profound selfishness, the same complete absence of conscience where her own wrongdoing was concerned. It also appeared clear that only one person had ever sincerely touched the heart of either of them, and that was the man who was dead. There was one thing that Kitty did truly grieve for, and that was Mortimer’s death. Whether it was because she had loved him, or because in losing him, she had lost the chance of marrying and so squaring her somewhat twisted and clouded past, would never be known to any one but herself. That she did grieve, however odd it might appear, was certain. The detectives exchanged glances of wonder as they realized how simple the case had been from the very first, once given the clew. As for the clew itself, Barrison had had it once, but had lost it. It was, as he had at one time suspected, that red evening coat. It had left the theater exactly when it was supposed to have left; only—it was not Kitty who had worn it! It was the morning after the episode at Ferrati’s, and Lowry was holding an informal inquiry. None of them who were present would ever forget it—nor the enchanting picture which the self-confessed murderess presented as she sat there with a poise that her situation could not impair, looking exquisite in the swathing black which she wore for the man whom she had herself killed! Inspector Lowry was, for once in his life, totally at a loss, absolutely nonplused. To Barrison, and the other men who knew him well, his blank amazement in the face of the phenomenon represented by Kitty Legaye was, to say the least of it, entertaining.