The Waterbury Democrat., 1931-02-02
CHAPTER xLylII.


 Your wife is already dead!" Then silencing the hoarse oaths of the men and the screams of the women came slow, terrible words: Tracey Arthur Miles. arrest you for tho murder of your wife, known as Jua' jnita Leigh Selim, and for the murder of Dexter Sprague. And it is my duty to warn you that anything yol say may be used against you!''
 Tracey Miles lifted his ashen fact and stared at the detective blankly as though he had gone deaf ant blind. "All-over-isn't it? May |-have-a drink? ?" he managed tt articulate at last.
 Poor devil! He needs it," the too soft-hearted young detective told himself, as Tracey Mile, poured a drink from the almos empty whiskey decanter and raised the little glass to his lips.
 II have-nothing-to say!" the murderer gasped thickly, then fel heavily to the floor.
 It was three-quarters of an houl later. District Attorney Sanderson Captain Strawn and Dundee were alone in tho house where Nita "Se. linn" had been murdered an6 where her husband had confessed his crimes by committing suicide The morgue ambulance had come
 q should have known" Dundee admitted ruefuly, as the three mer entered Nita's bedroom, "that SC ingenious criminal as Tracey Miles would not have failed to pro. vide against the possibility of dis. I covery. He must have snatched ar opportunity to spill cyanide of DO. l tassium into the decanter when my eyes were off him for a moment and upon Lois Dunlap"
 I'm glad he did," Sanderson said curtly. But 1t was ghastly that poor Lois had to know that it wa. she, in all innocence, who fired the gun."
 Tt was," Dundee sighed. "But believed that the only way l could makes Miles confess was to frighter him into thinking Flora would bt killed"
 Captain Strawn and I are stil in the dark as to exactly how Mile! managed his wife's murder" San derson reminded him. This morn ing you chose to tell us nothing more than that Hamilton mar had married Nita Leigh in New York on January. 1918, and tha eight years ago, when he saw hel picture in the Evening Sun, alont with the story that Anita Lee" hat committed suicide, he had felt fre' to marry again. You said ther you knew who the man was bu you would not even tell us how vol knew"
 Because I had very little actua proof then" Dundee answered. "A to who he was, the salient clue hat been staring me in the face tn whole time. but tt was not until was fooling with q set of anagram last night, idling spelling out tn names of all the men whom migh have married her and then mur dered her. that I saw It."
 Saw what?" Strawn demanded irritably.
 "That selim is simply Mile spelled backward" Dundee ex plained. Possibly because he con sidered it the sophisticated thinl to do, Miles used an assumed nam' at the party at which he met Nit; Leigh. Even the first name, Mat, by which she knew him, was onl! his initials reserved"
 "Simple-but clever" Sandersol commented.
 Just as all of Miles scheme were after Nita, egged on b! Sprague, turned up in Hamilton t demand back alimony' as the pric' of her silence. But h let .a m, '. He strode to the big bronze lamp "It took me less than an hour toda. to reconstruct the death machine s' that it would be almost exactly s' 1t was when Miles finished his worl just before 2:30 last Saturday-ant as it remained until he had an op portunity to come back here ant dismantle 1t Trust him to find ou that the guard was removed iron the house Thursday!"
 , As he spoke, he was unscrewin the big, jewel-studded bowl of tn bronze lamp. Wedged, at a down , ward d-slanting angle. inside tn i, bowl, which was 12 inches in diam , eter, was Judge Marshall's snub nosed automatic and silencer, tn end of the silencer projectin , slightly from a hole whose jewe ' was missing.
 ,, There's a blank cartridge in tn , s 6uh ho"S Ol SOoAoSS bAS @AA-SS, A , his panic, took my words literall, See the electro-magne strapped to the gun butt? He got , from the bell Sprague had installe , from here to Lydia's bedroom. Tn magnet was connected with tn electric wire in one of the tw lamp sockets, as you see it now and the long cord of the lamp wa , connected with the wire of the be in the dining room-so connecte . that when anyone stepped on tn two little metal plates under tn , dining room rug, the kitchen be would ring and the gun would b , fired simultaneously. But if yo will examine the jewel hole," h , suggested, as he removed the guI "you will see that Miles had t l enlarge it considerably, using , reamer, which found in the too chest in the basement, along wit . all the apparatus which Spragu had bought for installing Nita } alarm bell. I could see no reaso for Sprague's having needed F reamer, however, and this mornin was lucky enough to get proc that Miles himself had purchase 5 it at hardware store on Tues l day."
 3 How did he connect the lam
 "copomo, sense" are fwO imnort