"Just a moment!" She spoke slowly, distinctly. "What were you, a trained nurse, doing when your patient was stabbed to death?" Miriam whitened, but faced her questioner with quiet courage. "I was lying near the bed unconscious," she admitted, "having been chloroformed." Betty rose to her feet. "I have heard that a person under the influence of chloroform or ether is subject to hallucinations," she said. "I prefer to believe that than to think you are demented." "Demented!" Miriam sprang up, her eyes flashing with indignation. Betty addressed Sheriff Trenholm directly, ignoring the others. "The nurse is either demented or drawing upon her imagination," she declared. "I was not here last night." She faced Miriam and her glance was impersonal, unfaltering. "Nor have I ever seen you before." CHAPTER IV THE BLACK CREST MARTHA CORBIN laid down the brass fire tongs and turned to look at the wood-basket by the hearth. The logs were both long and heavy. Before attempting to lift one her attention was caught by the sound of a familiar lagging footstep going in the direction of the back hall. "You, Charlie," she called, shrilly. "Come 'ere and fix this fire." A snarl was his only response, and a second later a door banged shut behind her amiable spouse. Martha's thin lips compressed into a hard line. Stooping over she tugged and pulled at the topmost log and finally lifted it up. She let it fall in the center of the burning wood and then rested one hand against the stone chimney to get her breath. It was some seconds before she felt able to take up the hearth brush and sweep the ashes back under the andirons. That successfully accomplished she dropped on one knee and held her chilled hands up to the blaze. She was grateful for the heat. As she crouched there the firelight, which alone illuminated the living room at Abbott's Lodge, cast fantastic shadows on her face, exaggerating her fixed expression to one of almost fierce determination. Still in her early forties, Martha Corbin had once been extremely pretty, but ill health had destroyed her good looks and whitened her hair, which, worn straight back, intensified the gray pallor of her appearance. Her prolonged stare at the fire wavered finally, caught by a piece of white paper protruding from a crack in the tiled hearth. One end was singed, but it had fallen on the outer edge of the bed of hot ashes and escaped entire destruction. Reaching down she picked up the piece and turned it over. It was evidently the upper right-hand corner of an envelope, for the flap still bore traces of glue as well as a perfectly formed black seal--the wax unbroken except at the edges. Martha had no chance to read the printed lines on the reverse of the paper. "What have ye there?" demanded Corbin over her shoulder and seized her roughly. With surprising swiftness she broke from his grasp and got to her feet.