Intricacy not too intricate and detective genius not too unfailing combine skillfully with characterization not too insistent. Climactic horror is achieved by the disclosure of the murderer's unwitting paternal relation to the murdered girl and is framed in the romance of the mother's relentlessly eternal love for him. A philosophic calm abides with the reader, nevertheless, because of a quality common to most detective stories--a distributing of personal interest whence emanates a savingly objective attitude of mind. Illustrated.