Miriam shook her head in the negative. "Not to my knowledge. I have not seen Miss Carter since dinner." Mrs. Nash grunted as she turned over on her side. "Well, if Betty slept through Martha's dreadful scream she rivals the seven sleepers," she commented and closed her eyes. It was after three o'clock when Miriam threw back the blanket which she had wrapped around herself and rose softly from the chair by the bedside. Mrs. Nash had been asleep for fully two hours. Miriam was thoroughly chilled and she chafed one hand over the other as she walked noiselessly up and down the bedroom, hoping to stimulate circulation. She stopped finally by the table where stood the lamp and laid her hands on its glass globe. As she stood warming them by the heat from the lamp, she observed a bowl of nuts pushed toward the back of the table. Her vigil had sharpened her appetite, and she had regretted several times that she had neglected to ask Martha for a night lunch. Reaching over she pulled the bowl toward her and took up one of the walnuts and the nut cracker. As the instrument crunched over the nut, it sounded in the stillness like a miniature firecracker and she paused, and looked over her shoulder in alarm at her patient. Apparently the noise had not disturbed Mrs. Nash, for she slept peacefully on. Several tempting pieces of the nut meat stuck in the shell and not daring to use the nut cracker again, she started to take up the nut pick lying in the bowl. For fully five seconds she stood staring at it, her hand poised in mid-air; then with one hurried, comprehensive look about the room and at her sleeping patient, she picked up the bowl and sped into the hall, her flying footsteps deadened by the strip of carpet which ran its length, and brought up breathless by the sofa on which Sheriff Trenholm had thrown himself, fully dressed, a short time before. "Look!" she exclaimed, keeping her voice lowered in spite of her excitement, and she pointed to the nut pick. It was of finest steel, about eight inches long, with a straight, sharp point and sharpened fluted edges running along its sides. From point to handle it was stained a dull red. "Blood!" The word escaped Guy Trenholm in little more than a whisper, and simultaneously they turned to the undertaker's couch near the center of the room on which lay all that was mortal of Paul Abbott. "The wound was spindle-shaped," Miriam added in a voice not quite steady, and Trenholm bowed his head. "You have found the weapon, undoubtedly," he said. "Thank you." CHAPTER VII CURIOUS QUESTIONS AND EVASIVE ANSWERS DOCTOR ROBERTS laid down his stethoscope and frowned as he gazed at Mrs. Nash, lying back on her pillow, both eyes closed, and breathing rapidly. Leaning forward he picked up her chart and read Miriam's notations on it with a wrinkled brow. "You must stay in bed another day," he said finally. "The flu is treacherous."