Little more remains to be told. For weeks afterwards the case was threshed out in the newspapers, but nothing was brought out that you do not already know. No suspicion attached to Mount's chauffeur and footman. They had met him at the Greenwood City station according to orders. He had exclaimed at the beauty of Ringstead plains, and they thought that was why he had himself carried back and forth so many times. On the last journey he had remarked the locust tree, speaking of the rarity of the species, and had ordered them to stop so that he could examine it. They knew nothing about trees, of course. They had not seen him pick up the keys.

The news of Mount's death took all the fight out of Lorina. Whatever human feeling there was in that woman was all for him. It appeared that her devotion to him was so abject, that she was even willing to help him in his plotting to secure Irma for his wife.

The thieves were sent up for terms more or less corresponding to the degrees of their guilt. Lorina and Foxy are still there. Jumbo is out now, and professes to have reformed. He seems to bear me no malice, and occasionally braces me for a small loan. One of the gang, Bella Bleecker, escaped for lack of evidence. I knew that she was one of Lorina's creatures, whom Mount had placed near Irma as a spy, but there was nothing to connect her with the thefts.

There was one mysterious feature of the case which the trial did not clear up, i.e., the source of Roland's handsome legacy. I had my suspicions but no proof. Mount's doctor was one of his executors and I was permitted to examine the dead man's papers. I found that on the last day of March previous he had drawn $40,000 in cash.

This was pretty conclusive, but there was a link of evidence still missing. Continuing a search of Mount's effects I found a receipted bill from an obscure lawyer for legal services rendered about this time. I looked the man up.

He proved to be a seedy, servile little creature, one of the desperate hangers-on of the outer fringe of a respectable profession. Mount being dead and no longer a possible employer it was easy to make the lawyer talk.

Whether or not he knew what he was doing, I can't say. He claimed that Mount had told him he wished to do something for a worthy young fellow who was too proud to accept anything from him direct. He then laid out the scheme of the mysterious, unhappy lady who was supposed to have died leaving Roland Quarles her fortune. Mount, the lawyer said, supplied the ingenious letter that was sent to Roland. The lawyer carried the money to the trust company.

This information dissipated the last bit of mystery. The more I thought over it the............