"Don't get excited Bess," said Jim using her Christian name in his hurry. "I will put it alright." But Bess in a rage kept turning over the papers and scattering them on the floor in her search for the manuscript. Suddenly she tossed aside a pile of writing-paper in the left-hand drawer. Underneath was an old fashioned pistol. She looked at it in astonishment. "Where did that come from?" she asked in dismay, taking it up. Herrick took it from her. He recognised it at once. It was the very pistol that Manuel had shown him in Joyce's flat. "What does it mean?" asked Bess quite amazed at the discovery. "It means that Joyce is even more of a hound than I thought he was." CHAPTER XIV THE CONFESSION OF BESS Bess Endicotte stared at Herrick where he stood with a black look on his face, and the clumsy weapon in his hand. "And I'll see Bridge about it," he was saying, "the bullet's still at the police office. If it fits this----" he clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. "What?" cried Bess finding her tongue, and asking the question with a shiver. "Is that the pistol with which----" here her voice died away in her throat. "It can't be," she whispered. Herrick looked at her in his turn, and slipped the pistol into his pocket. "I know what you are thinking about," he said quietly, "but the pistol will do you no harm. I have seen it before. You are all right Bess." "All right!" she echoed and drawing her brows together. "What do you mean?" "Why, what should I mean, but that Joyce slipped this devilish piece of evidence into the table drawer, just to accuse you of----" She bounded to her feet, grasping the idea for the first time. "He did that, did he?" she cried her head flung back, her eyes angry. "Oh!" she stamped, "what should be done to such a man! And you can sit quietly there Dr. Jim." "Because I want to hear your story. After this, you must tell me all you know; all you have heard. As for Joyce," his mouth twisted, "leave him to me. He will not get off easily I promise you." "To put the pistol there, that I----" she broke off again, and looked at him in a scared manner. "Did _he_ kill Carr?" she asked. "That I can't say--yet. To kill the man he must have had some strong motive. I have yet to learn the motive strong or weak that would make Joyce risk his neck. He is careful of his neck too," explained Dr. Jim. "I have a mind to break it." "And why?" asked Bess round-eyed. She had never seen the good-tempered doctor in such a rage. "I wonder you can't guess," remarked Herrick cooling down. With a gasp Bess drew back. Their eyes met. A sudden crimson flushed her face, and she turned it away. "Yes," said Herrick taking her hand, "and I only knew it myself a moment ago." "What are you talking about?" cried the girl snatching her hand away. "I am talking of you and myself. Ida said that it would come all of a sudden, and she was right, here it is, and I have been looking in the wrong place for it these many months."