of a very pressing nature
just now?"

"They are."

"And your business sense in abeyance?"

"How so?"

"You would not ask if you had read the papers."

To this she made no reply save by a slight toss of her pretty head.
If her employer felt nettled by this show of indifference, he did not
betray it save by the rapidity of his tones as, without further preamble
and possibly without real excuse, he proceeded to lay before her the
case in question. "Last Tuesday night a woman was murdered in this city;
an old woman, in a lonely house where she has lived for years. Perhaps
you remember this house? It occupies a not inconspicuous site in
Seventeenth Street--a house of the olden time?"

"No, I do not remember."

The extreme carelessness of Miss Strange's tone would have been fatal to
her socially; but then, she would never have used it socially. This they
both knew, yet he smiled with his customary indulgence.

"Then I will describe it."

She looked around for a chair and sank into it. He did the same.

"It has a fanlight over the front door."

She remained impassive.

"And two old-fashioned strips of parti-coloured glass on either side."

"And a knocker between its panels which may bring money some day."

"Oh, you do remember! I thought you would, Miss Strange."

"Yes. Fanlights over doors are becoming very rare in New York."

"Very well, then. That house was the scene of Tuesday's tragedy. The
woman who has lived there in solitude for years was foully murdered.
I have since heard that the people who knew her best have always
anticipated some such violent end for her. She never allowed maid or
friend to remain with her after five in the afternoon; yet she had
money--some think a great deal--always in the house."

"I am interested in the house, not in her."

"Yet, she was a character--as full of whims and crotchets as a nut is
of meat. Her death was horrible. She fought--her dress was torn from her
body in rags. This happened, you see, before her hour for retiring;
some think as early as six in the afternoon. And"--here he made a
rapid gesture to catch Violet's wandering attention--"in spite of
this struggle; in spite of the fact that she was dragged from room
to room--that her person was searched--and everything in the house
searched--that drawers were pulled out of bureaus--doors wrenched off of
cupboards--china smashed upon the floor--whole shelves denuded and not
a spot from cellar to garret left un