Carolyn Wells

“ You girls may as well know, first as last, I found—that is—I was given—oh, pshaw, here it is—Alma asked me to destroy a book for her, and it was a copy of that book that has in it the story of The Nail.”
“No!” cried Maud, aghast at the revelation. “Then——” She paused.
“Now, don’t jump at conclusions,” Lora begged, looking at me with the utmost kindness, “To find that book there doesn’t necessarily point to Alma. It may implicate that old harridan of a nurse or her caveman husband. Far more likely than that cultured girl!” ”

“ But I know, if you go there and face that nurse down, she’ll have to admit there’s some such state of things as I tell you of. She’d deny it to me, or to these ladies, but if a man went there and made her tell the truth, you’d soon find out! That’s why she had to be put out of her uncle’s house, when he decided to get a wife in there. He couldn’t bring a wife to a home with a girl like that in it. If it had not been for his approaching wedding, Mr. Tracy never would have put Alma out.”
“Posy,” Lora spoke gently, “are you willing to keep this secret a while longer? ”

“ But Lora had evidently caught a note of reality in the girl’s voice, for she said, almost sharply, “What do you know, Posy? If you know anything concerning the matter, it is your duty to tell of it.”
“I’d rather tell Mr. Moore,” she put on an air of importance. “He is at the head of the investigation, I assume.”
Lora smiled, in spite of herself, at the chit’s manner, but she only said, suavely:
“As a good wife, I am my husband’s helpmeet in all his business. ”

“ You see, I’ve doped it out that she has spells—you know, epileptic, or whatever they call it, and that they don’t come on often, but when they do, she has no control over her passions. She becomes—oh, somebody else, like—and she fights like a mad person. ”

“ He’ll cross question her and bullyrag her until he gets her so mixed up she won’t know where she’s at!”
“But, Gray,” Lora said, quietly, “have you realized that those fingerprints are not such as would be made in an attempt to raise the window? They are on the frame, not on the sash. They are obviously the marks made by some one who stepped up on the window sill and sprang out of the window. Kee is positive about this. He has examined them minutely.”
“Then Heaven help Alma,” I groaned. ”