He looked as if he wished he hadn't been so liberal with his assurances. I saw him glance half sulkily at Edwards, as he exclaimed, "But those diaries are burned--they're burned. Worth told us the other night that he burned them without reading." At the words, Edwards stopped stock-still, something almost humorous at the back of the suffering gaze he fastened on my face. I met it steadily, then answered Vandeman, "Doesn't make any difference to anybody that those books are burned. I'd read them; I know what was in them; and I know that three leaves--six pages--covering the entries of May 31 and June 1, 1916, were cut out." "But what the deuce, Boyne?" Vandeman wrinkled a smooth brow. "What would some leaves gone from Mr. Gilbert's diary four years ago have to do with us here to-day--or even with his recent death?" "Pardon me," I said shortly. "The matter's not as old as that. True, the stuff was written four years ago; it recorded happenings on those dates; but the ink that was used in marking out a run-over on the next following page was fresh. Anyhow, Mr. Vandeman, we know that a woman came weeping to Mr. Gilbert on the very night of his death, only a short time before his death--as nearly as medical science can determine that--and we believe that she came after those leaves out of the diary, and got them--whatever she had to do to secure them." I was struck with the difference in the way these two men took inquiry. Edwards had writhed, changed color, started to speak and caught himself back, showed all the agony of a clumsy criminal who dreads the probing that may give him away: temperament; the rotten spot in his affairs. Vandeman, younger, not entangled with an unhappy married woman, sat looking me in the eye, still smiling. The blow I had to deal him would be harder. It concerned his bride; but he'd take punishment well. I proceeded to let him have it. "I can see that Mr. Edwards has an idea what the entries on those pages covered. He has inadvertently shown me that your wife was the woman who came and got them from Thomas Gilbert on the night he was murdered." At that he turned on Edwards, and Edwards answered the look with, "I didn't. On my honor, Bronse, I never mentioned your name or Ina's. The Chinaman told him that--about some woman coming that evening--" "Mr. Vandeman," I broke in, "there's no use beating about the bush. Chung recognized your wife's voice. She was the woman who came weeping to get those diary leaves." He took that with astonishing quietness, and, "Suppose you were shown that she wasn't out of her mother's house?" "Wouldn't stop me. Allow that her alibi's perfect. Yet you men have something. There's something here I ought to know." "Something you'll never find out from me," Jim Edwards' deep voice was full of defiance. "Bronse, I owe you an apology; but you can depend on me to keep my mouth shut." After a minute's consideration Vandeman said,