“You heard nothing of the kind,” Kate broke forth angrily. “I was not near Central Park yesterday afternoon. I can prove an alibi. Recognized my voice, indeed! I can refute any such evidence as that, Carter, and you can bet your boots on it. You’re not going to frame me up in this way, take my word for it.” “Your word, Kate, isn’t worth the breath that utters it,” Nick replied. “That’s only your opinion,” she snapped back at him. “I expected you to deny everything in connection with this job, but I am gradually weaving the net around you,” Nick added. “You will also deny, of course, that you know anything about this letter.” He drew it from his pocket while speaking and spread it open for her to look at--the pencil-printed Redlaw letter. Kate Crandall gazed at it for a moment with flaming eyes, then tossed her head and burst out laughing--a bitter, scornful, defiant laugh, so utterly void of mirth that it grated harshly on Nick’s ears. “What is it?” she demanded. “Something that you have cooked up, Carter, with a view to putting me into the soup. I don’t want to read it. I care nothing about it, know nothing about it, and you may do what you like with it and go to the devil!” “You never saw it before, did you?” “No, never.” “We’ll see about that. Keep your seat, Kate, and keep your hands on your lap, where I can see them,” Nick sternly commanded. “If you move either of them, I’ll put you in irons.” “Irons! What do you mean by----” “I mean what I say,” Nick sharply interrupted. “Obey me, or you’ll pay the price.” “But----” “There aren’t any buts. I think I can verify my assertion. I came here for that purpose and many others equally important. You keep quiet.” Nick reached over to the desk while speaking and took from it the pad of paper mentioned. With an eye on Kate Crandall all the while, he compared the size of the printed sheet with the pad. It corresponded exactly. From a little tin box brought from his business office, Nick then sprinkled the quantity of dry black dust over the face of the pad, which he then held at a slight angle and blew the dust from the surface. Most of it was dispersed with a single breath. There remained, in fact, only the particles that occupied the faint indentations, scarcely perceptible before, caused by the pressure of a pencil through the printed sheet that had been removed from the pad--lines and letters which the black dust now brought out quite vividly. The face of the pad, in fact, now presented quite a legible likeness of the Redlaw letter--so like it that further denial was out of the question. Nick turned the pad and displayed it to the watching woman. “What say you now?” he asked sternly. “Out with it! What have you to say?” “If it’s all the same to you, Carter, I’ll do the saying at this stage of the game.” The last did not come from Kate Crandall, who looked as if turned to stone by the detective’s utterly irrefutable discovery.