aside by a true
detective, and it would have taken more than a woman's frowns to stop me
at this point.

However, it was not with frowns she received me, but with a display of
emotion for which I was even less prepared. I had sent up my card and I
saw it trembling in her hand as she entered the room. As she neared me,
she glanced at it, and with a show of gentle indifference which did not
in the least disguise her extreme anxiety, she courteously remarked:

"Your name is an unfamiliar one to me. But you told my maid that your
business was one of extreme importance, and so I have consented to see
you. What can an agent from a private detective office have to say to
me?"

Startled by this evidence of the existence of some hidden skeleton in
her own closet, I made an immediate attempt to reassure her.

"Nothing which concerns you personally," said I. "I simply wish to
ask you a question in regard to a small matter connected with Mr.
Hasbrouck's violent death in Lafayette Place, a couple of years ago.
You were living in the adjoining house at the time I believe, and it has
occurred to me that you might on that account be able to settle a point
which has never been fully cleared up."

Instead of showing the relief I expected, her pallor increased and her
fine eyes, which had been fixed curiously upon me, sank in confusion to
the floor.

"Great heaven!" thought I. "She looks as if at one more word from me,
she would fall at my feet in a faint. What is this I have stumbled
upon!"

"I do not see how you can have any question to ask me on that subject,"
she began with an effort at composure which for some reason disturbed
me more than her previous open display of fear. "Yet if you have," she
continued, with a rapid change of manner that touched my heart in spite
of myself, "I shall, of course, do my best to answer you."

There are women whose sweetest tones and most charming smiles only serve
to awaken distrust in men of my calling; but Mrs. Zabriskie was not
of this number. Her face was beautiful, but it was also candid in its
expression, and beneath the agitation which palpably disturbed her, I
was sure there lurked nothing either wicked or false. Yet I held fast by
the clue which I had grasped as it were in the dark, and without knowing
whither I was tending, much less whither I was leading her, I proceeded
to say:

"The question which I presume to put to you as the next door neighbour
of Mr. Hasbrouck is this: W