woman
had been found. Opposite was the little sewing-chair, usually occupied
by Alice when she and her mother had supper together at the table, which
had been a gift of Silvia's. Evidently it had been a fancy of Mrs.
Bell's to set the chair for the child before she opened the fatal box,
and Carroll had kept both chairs in their relative positions. The
doorway into the alcove bedroom was concealed by a portiere.

There was nothing in the desk now but some of Carroll's writing
materials; everything in the room had been ransacked at the time of its
mistress' death, and Silvia had herself searched carefully for anything
that might afford a possible clue. Sometimes she even thought that some
one, possessing a key, had entered the place and removed all evidence
while that ghastly witness still sat in the chair, for there were no
letters, no papers, nothing. Immediately after going there to stay,
Carroll had gone over the tiny place with systematic care. There was no
upholstered furniture in which anything could have been concealed; even
the divan was a rattan affair; there were only rugs upon the floors. The
mattress revealed nothing, and though she laboriously examined every
picture, there was nothing concealed back of them or within the frames.

"Don't you think the letter was mailed?" Silvia asked her, and she had
replied that while it probably had been, the chances were that a rough
draft of it had been written, and preserved somewhere, and it was for
this that she searched until it became evident that the slight resources
of the flat were exhausted.

It was rather a poor little place, woefully lacking in the closets and
cubby-holes so dear to women, and yet, as Carroll sat there in the
child's place, with her second cup of strong tea getting cold beside
her, she found herself looking at the other chair expectantly, and the
empty desk seemed watching her; she was resentfully conscious that
everything in that room knew the truth, everything save its human
occupant with her keen mind, her active brain. The hours passed and
still she sat there, waiting, waiting. There were the usual noises,
commonplace and mysterious, to be found in vacant houses, but about nine
o'clock she became conscious that there were sounds in the recently
vacated flat below. Evidently the family had come back for some last
articles which they had left behind. They were a quiet old couple with
whom Carroll had exchanged greetings now and then on the