Samuel Hopkins Adams

“ What could be more bizarre than insanity?”
“Was it suicidal insanity, then?” asked Bain.
“Not in the ordinary and intentional sense.”
“Then it was the other man that killed her,” said Preston Jax; “the man I heard yell, when she went over. But what became of him?”
“Simon P. Groot spoke of hearing that man’s scream, too,” confirmed Bain. “Have you got any clue to him, Professor Kent?”
“The other man was Francis Sedgwick,” declared Alexander Blair doggedly.
Chester Kent shook his head.
“I’ve got a witness against that theory, from your own side, Mr. Blair,” said he. ”

“ There was no other woman in the case, no disgrace, no shame. You need feel nothing but pity for an unhappy wrecked mind, for which death was the happiest refuge.”
Marjorie Blair sat very still and white. “Let me think!” she whispered. “Let me think!”
“But the man’s voice!” exclaimed Jax. “The voice of the man on the cliff!”
“Wilfrid Blair’s,” said Kent. “In the final moment he came to himself. At last he resumed his voice. Up to then he had been, in voice, manner, thought, purpose, unconsciously playing a part.”
“Astræa!” said Sedgwick and Jax in a breath. ”

“ She was, from the evidence of the Grosvenor family historian, who, by the way, has withheld all this from his pages, a woman of the most extraordinary charm and magnetism. Not beautiful, in the strict sense of the word, she had a gift beyond beauty, and she led men in chains. Her husband appears to have been a weakling who counted for nothing in her life after the birth of her children. Seeking distraction, she flung herself into mysticism and became the priestess of a cult of star-worshipers, which included many of the more cultivated people of this region. ”

“ The law doesn’t deal with ghosts or near-ghosts. Are you trying to tell us, Professor Kent, that the soul of this long-dead Astræa-Camilla Grosvenor, came back to inhabit the body of the Jane Doe of Lonesome Cove? ”

“ Having realized that much, I had to deal thenceforth with the mystery of a dead man masquerading as a woman, and being abetted in the deception by the officers of the law—”
“Astræa a man!” broke in Preston Jax, his chin in a spasm. “No wonder she—he put up such a fight. Who was he?”
“My son, Wilfrid Blair,” said Alexander Blair.
Sedgwick took a swift involuntary step toward Marjorie, but Kent was before him, setting a firm hand on his shoulder.
“Not now, Frank,” he said. Then, turning to the girl-widow, “You see, Mrs. Blair,” he said very gently, “it isn’t so bad as you feared. ”

“ Everything is strictly within the limits of the law’s cognizance, Mr. Bain, as you will see. Now I’m going to make a long jump down to the present. If I fail to keep the trail clear, anywhere, you are any of you at liberty to interrupt me. First, then, I want you to follow with me the course of a figure that leaves Hedgerow House on the late afternoon of July fifth. By chance, the figure is not seen, except at a distance by Gansett Jim, who suspected nothing, then. ”

“ Bain’s protest against burial without a formal view of the body, they opened up the casket and saw the obvious change in the face, there was nothing for the officials to do but remedy their carelessness. ”

“ Blair’s necklace and rings.”
“Dressing the part of Astræa,” guessed Lawyer Bain.
“Precisely. Our jeweled figure, in a dress that is an old one of Mrs. Blair’s, and with a package in hand, makes its way across country to the coast.”
“To join me,” said Preston Jax.
“To join you. Chance brings the wayfarer face to face with that gentleman of the peekaboo mind, Elder Dennett. They talk. The stranger asks—quite by chance, though the Elder assumed it was otherwise—about the home of Francis Sedgwick. At the entrance to Sedgwick’s place the pair met. ”