“Agatha Webb’s portrait,” explained Talbot, “or rather Agatha Gilchrist’s; for I presume this was painted when she and James were lovers.”

“She was certainly a beauty,” commented Fenton, as he bent over the miniature in the moonlight.  “I do not wonder she queened it over the whole country.”

“He must have worn it where I found it for the last forty years,” mused the doctor.  “And yet men say that love is a fleeting passion.  Well, after coming upon this proof of devotion, I find it impossible to believe James Zabel accountable for the death of one so fondly remembered.  Sweetwater’s instinct was truer than Knapp’s.”

“Or ours,” muttered Fenton.

“Gentlemen,” interposed Abel, pointing to a bright spot that just then made its appearance in the dark outline of the shade before alluded to, “do you see that hole?  It was the sight of that prick in the shade which sent Sweetwater outside looking for footprints.  See!  Now his eye is to it” (as the bright spot became suddenly eclipsed).  “We are under examination, sirs, and the next thing we will hear is that he’s not the only person who’s been peering into this room through that hole.”

He was so far right that the first words of Sweetwater on his re-entrance were:  “It’s all O. K., sirs.  I have found my missing clew.  James Zabel was not the only person who came up here from the Webb cottage last night.”  And turning to Knapp, who was losing some of his supercilious manner, he asked, with significant emphasis:  “If, of the full amount stolen from Agatha Webb, you found twenty dollars in the possession of one man and nine hundred and eighty dollars in the possession of another, upon which of the two would you fix as the probable murderer of the good woman?”

“Upon him who held the lion’s share, of course.”

“Very good; then it is not in this cottage you will find the person most wanted.  You must look—­But there! first let me give you a glimpse of the money.  Is there anyone here ready to accompany me in search of it?  I shall have to take him a quarter of a mile farther up-hill.”

“You have seen the money?  You know where it is?” asked Dr. Talbot and Mr. Fenton in one breath.

“Gentlemen, I can put my hand on it in ten minutes.”

At this unexpected and somewhat startling statement Knapp looked at Dr. Talbot and Dr. Talbot looked at the constable, but only the last spoke.

“That is saying a good deal.  But no matter.  I am willing to credit the assertion.  Lead on, Sweetwater; I’ll go with you.”

Sweetwater seemed to grow an inch taller in his satisfied vanity.  “And Dr. Talbot?” he suggested.

But the coroner’s duty held him to the house and he decided not to accompany them.  Knapp and Abel, however, yielded to the curiosity which had been aroused by these extraordinary promises, and presently the four men mentioned started on their small expedition up the hill.