Then he went away to school, and I to India. I
am much older than he, so we did not meet. When I returned to England
from India he had disappeared on account of a foolish row with our
father. Our only sister, Helen, had married a scamp against the wishes
of the family, and had left England also. Shortly after that both our
parents died, and I came to America with the intention of finding both
my sister and brother, and this is how it has turned out."
Tears were coursing down the major's pale cheeks.
"Don't you see how it is?" he asked, holding out the photograph to Ted.
Suddenly it dawned upon Ted, and he took the photograph and gazed at it
eagerly.
It was Helen Mowbray, the sister of the major and of Farnsworth, or Fred
Caruthers, to give him his real name--the woman who had been strangled
to death in her house at Rodeo.
This was a shock indeed.
The complications which had arisen in these few hours were sufficient to
shatter the strongest nerves, and Ted himself trembled a little at the
possibilities unfolded by this unforeseen and unexpected knowledge,
while it entirely unnerved the major, and left him as weak as a child.
What was to be done? It was not likely that Fred Caruthers could be
found at once. That he knew that it was his sister who had been
murdered, and that he was charged with the crime, would be sufficient to
spur him on and on, his brain and heart filled with horror.
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