“The inquest is to-day,” remarked the inspector, who was smoking very hard and looking very bland and satisfied. “And we won’t have to have any ‘person or persons unknown’ verdict this time! Found the murderer inside of forty-eight hours! We didn’t do so badly, eh, my boy?” Barrison dropped his eyes to hide an involuntary twinkle at the “we.” “Splendid, sir!” he declared cordially. “Good-by! I’m off to make a few extra inquiries—of a strictly personal nature.” CHAPTER XXXIII THE FALSE GODS GO “Well?” demanded Miss Templeton, at whose apartment Jim Barrison presented himself in record time after leaving headquarters. “And is the case now closed?” “Not quite,” said Barrison, putting down his hat and stick deliberately and standing facing her. She was standing, too; and, as she was a tall woman, her eyes were not so very much below his own. She was, he thought, most splendidly beautiful as she stood there gravely looking at him. “Not quite,” he repeated, in a voice he had never before permitted himself to use in speaking to her. “I want to ask a few more questions, please?” She nodded, still watching him in that deep, intent fashion. “First,” pursued Jim, trying to speak steadily and to keep to the unimportant things, even while his heart was throbbing violently, “why did you always suspect Kitty Legaye?” “Because I had an instinct against her; also because I was sure that she knew that man Wrenn. I could tell by the way that they looked at each other that they were not strangers, though I never knew them to speak to each other. And, you see, I knew that he was connected with Alan Mortimer’s old life. The suspicion seemed to slip in naturally.” “And at any time—at any time, mind you—did you have it in your mind to kill Mortimer yourself?” “Never!” she returned at once, and firmly. He paused a moment, looking full into the clearest eyes that ever a woman had. “Grace,” he said, calling her so for the first time, “why did you buy that revolver?” She colored painfully, but her eyes met his as truthfully as before. “Ah, you knew that!” she said. “I had hoped that you did not. However, what can it matter now? I am very much changed since the day I bought that revolver. You know that, I think?” “I know it,” he acknowledged gently. “I was terribly hurt, terribly outraged, terribly disappointed. You must always remember that I am a woman of wild emotions. I felt myself flung aside—not only in love, but in my profession. I had lost my part, and I had lost the man who, after all, I had believed I loved.” “And did _you_ want to kill Sybil Merivale, too?” She stared at him in astonishment. “Kill Sybil Merivale!” she repeated. “Why on earth should I? I had nothing against the girl, except that I believe I was a little jealous of her youth and freshness just at first. No; I had made up my mind to kill myself.” “Yourself!”