involved in their statements concerning this matter."

"This 'Tabnit,'" said Miss Holland, and flashed a smile of pretty
deference at the lawyer to console him for her total neglect of his
comment, "in McDougle Street. Who can he be?--he _is_ a man, I
suppose. And where is McDougle Street?"

St. George explained the location, and Mrs. Hastings fretfully
commented.

"I'm sure, Olivia," she said, "I think it is frightfully unwomanly
in you--"

"To take so much interest in my own murder?" Miss Holland asked in
amusement. "Aunt Dora, I'm going to do more: I suggest that you and
Mr. Frothingham and I go with Mr. St. George to this address in
McDougle Street--"

"My dear Olivia!" shrilled Mrs. Hastings, "it's in the very heart of
the Bowery--isn't it, Mr. St. John? And only think--"

It was as if Mrs. Hastings' frustrate words emerged in the fantastic
guise of her facial changes.

"No, it isn't quite the Bowery, Mrs. Hastings," St. George
explained, "though it won't look unlike."

"I wish I knew what Mr. Hastings would have done," his widow
mourned, "he always said to me: 'Medora, do only the necessary
thing.' Do you think this _is_ the necessary thing--with all the