tion, do not Colonel Ostrander's comments of yesterday begin to take on a phosph'rescent aspect?"
"Look here!" said Markham impatiently. "Cut out these circumlocutions, and get to the point."
Vance turned slowly from the window, and regarded him pensively.
"Markham—I put the question academically—doesn't Pfyfe's forged check, with its accompanying confession and its shortly-due note, constitute a rather strong motive for doing away with Benson?"
Markham sat up suddenly.
"You think Pfyfe guilty—is that it?"
"Well, here's the touchin' situation: Pfyfe obviously signed Benson's name to a check, told him about it, and got the surprise of his life when his dear old pal asked him for a ninety-day note to cover the amount, and also for a written confession to hold over him to insure payment. . . . Now consider the subs'quent facts:—First, Pfyfe called on Benson a week ago and had a quarrel in which the check was mentioned,—Damon was prob'bly pleading with Pythias to extend the note, and was vulgarly informed that there was 'nothing doing'. Secondly, Benson was shot two days later, less than a week before the note fell due. Thirdly, Pfyfe was at Benson's house the hour of the shooting, and not only lied to you about his whereabouts, but bribed a garage owner to keep silent about his car. Fourthly, his explanation, when caught, of his unrewarded search for Haig and Haig was, to say the least, a bit thick. And don't forget that the original tale of his lonely quest for nature's solitudes in the Catskills—with his mysterious stop-over in New York to confer a fare-
