ious, and very common woman with false
hair and teeth; and evidently determined to secure Athalie for a
lodger.

But the terms she offered the girl for the entire top floor were so
absurdly small that Athalie hesitated, astonished and perplexed.

"Oh, there's a jinx in the place," said the landlady; "I ain't aiming
to deceive nobody, and I'll tell you the God-awful truth. If I don't,"
she added naively, "somebody else is sure to hand it to you and you'll
get sore on me and quit."

"What _is_ the matter with the apartment?" inquired the girl uneasily.

"I'll tell you: the lady that had it went dead on me last August."

"Is that all?"

"No, dearie. It was chloral. And of course, the papers got hold of it
and nobody wants the apartment. That's why you get it cheap--if you'll
take it and chase out the jinx that's been wished on me. Will you,
dearie?"

"I don't know," said the girl, looking around at the newly decorated
and cheerful rooms.

The landlady sniffed: "It certainly was one on me when I let that jinx
into my house--to have her go dead on me and all like that."

"Poor thing," murmured Athalie, partly to herself.

"No, she wasn't poor. You ought to have seen her rings! Them's what
got her into trouble, dearie;--and the roll she flashed."

"Wasn't it suicide?" asked Athalie.

[Illustration: "'Wasn't it suicide?' asked Athalie."]

"I gotta tell you the truth. No, it wasn't. She was feeling fine and
dandy. Business had went good.... There was a young man to visit her
that evening. I seen him go up the stairs.... But I was that sleepy
I went to bed. So I didn't see him come down. And next day at noon
when I went up to do the room she lay dead onto the floor, and her
rings gone, and the roll missing out of her stocking."

"Did the man kill her?"

"Yes, dearie. And the papers had it. That's what put me in Dutch. I
gotta be honest with _you_. You'd hear it, anyway."

"But how could he give her chloral--"

The anxious, excited little woman's volubility could suffer restraint
no longer:

"Oh, he could dope her easy in the dark!" she burst out. "Not that the
house ain't thur'ly respectable as far as I can help it, and all my
lodgers is refined. No, Miss Greensleeve, I won't stand for nothing
that ain't refined and genteel. Only what can a honest woman do when
she's abed and asleep, what with all the latch keys and entertainin',
and things like that? No, Miss Greensleeve, I ain't got myself to
blame, bei