I FELT BOTH SICK & excited as I continued to read the front page column about the bloody murder of Con Mason, the man who had been kissing Violetta at the wedding:

About one o’clock this morning a pistol shot was fired in the street. A few minutes later a man came into the Ormsby House and stated that he had just stumbled over a body three or four squares west. He said he found a well-dressed, youngish-looking man lying stiff and stark on his back, his hat on his breast, his chestnut hair dabbling in a large pool of blood, and his glazed eyes staring upward at the stars of heaven. He was lying in front of a small wooden house with “to let” on the door, and a porch which may have afforded concealment to the lurking assassin. There was a round hole under his left ear, and a corresponding hole nearly opposite under the right ear, which probably marked the passage of the leaden messenger of death into and out of his head.

At first I did not understand the last sentence. But then I realized that a “leaden messenger of death” was reporter-talk for a Bullet.

I thought, “Violetta was sparking the murdered man at the wedding last night.”

Then I thought, “She asked him to meet her later.”

And finally, “Was the ‘leaden messenger of death’ a bullet from her Bosom Deringer?”

“I think I know who might have killed him!” I cried.

I dropped the newspaper, left my eggs & bacon & beans, and ran out of my room past an openmouthed Mrs. Murphy. Now, I had got in the habit of taking Cheeya for early morning rides before breakfast, so I was wearing no disguise at all but just my comfortable buckskin trowsers, moccasins, blue woolen coat & feathered slouch hat.

I found the scene of the crime four blocks west of the Ormsby House Hotel. People were milling about, so I loitered behind a cottonwood tree & surveyed the scene from there. It was just as the newspaper article had described: a small wooden house with “to let” on the door & a porch. The people were clustered around a spot right on the path in front of that porch.

Ma Evangeline had once read me a Dime Novel in which a Detective claimed that a criminal always returns to the scene of the crime like a dog to his vomit, in accordance with Proverbs 26 and verse 11.

I searched the crowd, looking for Violetta.

She was not there.

However, I did see several legislators known to me, viz: Six-Shooter Luther, Sabbath Pray, Monkey Van Bokkelen and Firewood Winters.

Lapdog Pugh was there, too, with his dog, Sazerac. The critter might have sought me out again and exposed me, but Lucifer, the monkey, started tormenting him and they were too busy feuding to notice a half-Indian kid lurking behind a tree.

Presently someone said, “We’d best get going, boys, or the Sergeant at Arms will tan our hides.”

“Is that where it happened?” said a girl’s voice behind me.

I jumped, but it was only Miss Carrie Pixley.

“What are you doing here?” I said.

“I live just there.” She pointed. “I heard a bang last night and woke up and almost went to see what made it. But my bed was warm so I just went back to sleep. If I had looked out of my window I might have seen the killer.”

“I wish you had,” I said.

“Me, too,” said Carrie with a shudder. Then she said in a small voice, “P.K., why do people kill other people?”

I said, “JAG.”

“Beg pardon?”

“Jealousy, Anger & Greed,” I explained. “And sometimes the desire to be an actor,” I added, recalling my last case.

The legislators had dispersed and there was only a woman and her two children staring at something on the path leading up to the house. I left the shelter of my tree & started towards them.

“Where are you going?” asked Carrie.

“One of the jobs of a Detective,” I said, “is to look for clews.”

Carrie followed me down the path leading to the porch. It was made of crushed oyster shells. When the woman heard us crunching up the path she looked over her shoulder, then grasped the hands of her children and went quickly away. I guess she did not mind bloodstains as much as she minded a half-Indian kid. Her departure revealed a large patch of reddish brown on the crushed oyster shells. Beside me, Carrie gasped & covered the base of her throat with her fingers. “Is that . . . ?”

“Yup,” I nodded. “That is a big old bloodstain.”

Carrie took several steps back.

I knelt down and examined the grisly mark on the path, but found no clews.

I stood up & looked at the porch. Someone waiting there could easily have stepped out of nighttime shadows and shot the victim as he was approaching the house.

“I saw Sheriff Gasherie here this morning,” said Carrie. She was holding her hand up beside the outside corner of her eye as a blinker, so she could not see the bloodstain. “He and his Deputy looked all over. He dug something out of that cottonwood you were hiding behind.”

I went back to my tree. Sure enough, there was a hole in the splintered bark where a “leaden messenger of death” might have lodged. Now, most people would reckon that mark had been made by a .36 caliber ball like that of a Colt’s Navy. But I judged the bullet was a slightly smaller caliber, like a .32.

I stood with my back to the tree & pointed my finger like a gun barrel towards the bloodstain & I found I was also pointing at the porch.

I crunched back up the path & stepped over the bloodstain & mounted three stairs.

According to the article, the porch “may have afforded concealment to the lurking assassin.” I stood there and looked back at the bloodstain on the path and pointed my pistol finger. Sure enough, the killer must have been standing here. I got down on my hands & knees & used my Indian tracking skills to examine the raw planks of the porch. I was about to leave when my sharp eye caught a movement in a pile of firewood by the front door.

I brought my nose close & was just in time to see a shiny black spider with long slender legs and a red hourglass on her stomach disappear into a space between the billets of wood.

It was a Black Widow spider! Was it a sign?

As I moved away, I saw three pieces of thread caught on the rough end of one of the billets. I pulled these gently away. Two of the strands were kind of reddish purple and one was white.

I stood up. If someone stood here wearing a puffy skirt, then the hem would brush that woodpile.

“What have you found?” called Carrie.

I took the threads over to her.

“What would you call that color?”

Miss Carrie Pixley looked at the threads in my palm and said. “That is Solferino taffeta and that there is champagne bobbin lace.”

I thought, “Mrs. Violetta De Baskerville was wearing a Solferino ball gown last night at the wedding.”

Then I thought, “Her Bosom Deringer takes thirty-two caliber bullets.”

And finally, “Now I am sure Violetta was the one who shot and killed Con Mason.”

I looked at Carrie. “I have got the bulge on Violetta. I must go and warn Jace!”

I ran all the way to the St. Charles Hotel & through the lobby & past the startled face of the desk clerk & up the stairs & along the narrow corridor & I banged hard on the door of room No. 4.

By and by, I heard noises from within & then footsteps.

Jace opened the door.

He was wearing a blue silk dressing gown & his hair was rumpled & his chin was unshaven. The room smelled of stale cigar smoke, sweat and violet toilet water.

When he saw me his eyes got wider just a fraction and then narrowed. “What is it?” he said.

“Jace!” I said. “I have come to warn you! I was at the wedding last night and I saw Violetta kissing a man and today that same man is dead, shot dead at about one o’clock this morning. Also, I found threads from a Solferino ball gown . . .” I had to pause for breath and when I did Jace spoke.

“Are you accusing her of murder?”

“Yes, sir!” I cried, still out of breath. “It had to be her. She must have done it last night. I came to warn you not to kiss her anymore or have anything to do with her—”

“You are mistaken,” interrupted Jace. “Violetta has been here since about eleven o’clock last night.”

He opened the door a little wider and I saw a sight that gave me the fantods. In the bed behind him lay Mrs. Violetta De Baskerville. She had the blankets pulled up to her neck & her dark hair fanned out all over the pillow.

She was awake and smiling at me.

Then she laughed her tinkling laugh and it sent a chill all through my body. I knew that Black Widow had caught Jace in her web.