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Huddled down in his chair, with his head flung back so that the terrible ghastliness of his face fronted Kent, was Kedsty And Kent, in an instant, knew Only a dead man could look like that

With a cry he entered the roo cry came into her throat as she turned her eyes fro upon the dead in tays Marette Radisson, living and breathing, hiter than Kedsty, hite with the unbreathing pallor of the actually dead She did not speak Shecry in her throat She sireat, wide eyes blazing dully their agony and despair Then, like one stunned and fascinated, she stared down upon Kedsty again

Every instinct of the man-hunter became alive in Kent's brain as he, too, turned toward the Inspector of Police Kedsty's ar liht hand was his Colt automatic His head was strained so far over the back of the chair that it looked as though his neck had been broken On his forehead, close up against his short-cropped, iron-gray hair, was a red stain

Kent approached and bent over hinize it now, but seldom had he seen a face twisted and distorted as Kedsty's was His eyes were open and bulging in a glassy stare His jaws hung loose His-It was then Kent's blood froze in his veins Kedsty had received a blow, but it was not the blow that had killed hi that had choked him was a TRESS OF WOMAN'S HAIR

In the seconds that followed that discovery Kent could not have moved if his own life had paid the penalty of inaction For the story was told--there about Kedsty's throat and on his chest The tress of hair was long and soft and shining and black It isted twice around Kedsty's neck, and the loose end rippled down over his shoulder, GLOWING LIKE A BIT OF RICH SABLE IN THE LAMPLIGHT It was that thought of velvety sable that had coht that caers; he unwound it fros in the flesh Froth And he turned slowly and faced Marette Radisson