"In reconstructing the case from the beginning," Duvall said, later in the day, "one fact stands out with especial prominence—the almost total absence of any definite clues."

He was sitting in the library of the Morton apartment, and with him were his wife, Mrs. Morton and Ruth.

"The thing was certainly very cleverly done," Mrs. Morton remarked. "I still do not understand it in the least. How, for instance, were the letters placed in my daughter\'s room?"

"I am coming to that," replied Duvall. "But first I will run over the case in the light of Miss Norman\'s confession to me so that you may understand it thoroughly and decide what action you wish to take against her and her sister, Miss Ford."

"Her sister?"

"Yes. The woman\'s name is not Norman. It is Ford—Jane Ford. Norman is an assumed name.

"The two of them came to New York about a year ago from somewhere up the state—a small town near Rochester, I believe. One secured employment in the motion picture studio—the other, the one calling herself Miss Norman, worked as a stenographer.

"Her interest in motion pictures having been aroused by her sister\'s stories of the life in the studio, she became an ardent picture \'fan,\' and spent every evening watching the films.

"Her attention was particularly devoted to the pictures in which your daughter appeared, owing to the stories her sister told her about Miss Morton\'s marvelous salary, her beauty, the ease with which she had become famous.

"These stories naturally inflamed her sister\'s mind. Working for ten dollars a week, she began to compare her state with that of a girl of her own age earning a hundred times as much, and gradually the idea began to possess her that she could become a motion-picture star herself.

"At first she admired Miss Morton immensely and never missed an opportunity to see the pictures in which she appeared. Then, convinced of her own ability as an actress, she made application at the studio at which her sister worked for a position.

"It seems she haunted the studio for several weeks without getting any encouragement. Then, more to get rid of her than for any other reason, one of the directors offered her a place as extra woman in a picture Miss Morton was doing—a very minor part, in which she had to appear momentarily as a saleswoman at a counter in a department store.

"Unfortunately, when Miss Morton saw her she happened to say to the director that she would have preferred a woman of a different type, dark, taller, so as to provide a more effective foil to her own type of beauty. As a result, the girl did not get the position."

"I am so sorry," Ruth cried. "I hadn\'t the least idea who the girl was, and, of course, I wouldn\'t have done her any harm for the world."

"I know that," Duvall replied, "but she did not. She is mentally rather erratic, and she at once conceived the idea that you had singled her out for persecution; that, in fact, you were envious of her abilities and meant to prevent her from getting a chance.

"The thing preyed on her mind, and I fancy, unbalanced it a little. She conceived a violent hatred for you, and with her sister began to plot revenge.

"Her first move was to persuade her sister to move to the house on Fifty-seventh Street, close to your apartment. It took them some time to find the place—to secure a room situated as Miss Ford\'s was, but at last they managed it. Then they went to work.

"The letters were all typewritten on a machine belonging to a public stenographer whom the girls knew. Jane Ford would stop in at this woman\'s place late in the afternoon and asking permission to use one of the machines would type the threatening letters. The paper she used was procured especially for her by her sister at a stationery store downtown.

"The seal, a curious thing, had belonged to the girls\' father, and she conceived the idea of signing the letters with it to add to the grimness of her threats. As a matter of fact, I do not think she ever had the least intention of carrying them out. It was to be solely a campaign of fear. She probably thought that she could so frighten you, Miss Morton, that your health would be broken down, and your work consequently interfered with to such an extent that you would lose your position. As I say, I think she is mentally somewhat unbalanced. I cannot account for some of her actions, otherwise.

"The mailing of the first letter, the telephone messages, were comparatively simple. It was the delivery of those at the apartment that taxed her ingenuity. Yet the method was simple enough.

"The girls\' father, I am told, had been an animal trainer in a circus, and one of his bequests to his daughters was a pet monkey named Jack, that had been taught to do all sorts of tricks. The girls brought this monkey to New York with them after their father\'s death. When the question arose of delivering the letters in your room, Miss Morton, she decided to make use of the animal.

"Creeping out of Marcia Ford\'s bedroom to the roof of the back building, and taking the monkey with her, she crossed the roof of the second house and reached the wall of the apartment. From here she was in a position to reach either of your bedroom windows in the following manner.

"The monkey was led by means of a long, thin rope, attached to a sort of harness about his neck and shoulders. By going to the rear edge of the back building they could readily swing him over to the fire-escape, while by ascending to the top of the attic roof overlooking the court, they could in the same way enable him to reach the other window. The monkey had been trained to carry objects in his mouth. This accounts for the row of indentations on the letters found in your room. I had supposed they came from some mechanical device, fastened to the end of a long pole, but as a matter of fact, they were made by the monkey\'s teeth.

"The animal being light in weight, and the pads of his feet being, of course, soft, no traces of his presence were left on the newly painted surface of the fire-escape. The handkerchief that I found there had been knotted about his neck as the collar to which the rope was fastened had seemed a bit weak. In some way it became detached, probably when the girls jerked on the cord to summon him back after he had completed his task.

"In crossing the roofs of the two houses, the monkey\'s paws, as well as the rope, became covered with dust. This explains the spots which seemed to be finger marks upon the counterpane of your bed, and the long, dark straight line across the bed, which I thought might have been left by a rod or pole. As a matter of fact, it was made by a tightly stretched rope.

"The sending of the monkey on the night when you were lying in bed must have been a mistake. You will remember that, contrary to your usual habit, you retired that night very early—a little after eight o\'clock, if I remember correctly. The girls, coming over the room, saw that your room was dark, and naturally supposed that no one was in it. The grinning face of the monkey standing on the bed beside you, was the death\'s head apparition you thought you saw. At your cries the two women at once jerked on the cord, and the monkey hastened back to them through the partly raised window, leaving no trace of his presence except the black smudges of which I have spoken.

"I have no doubt that Jane Ford followed me back to my hotel after one of my early visits to your apartment, and thus learned my name and address. Her supposition that I was engaged in an attempt to ferret out the writer of the letters was ............