rything was confusion. Desk drawers stood open--one
of the linen shades had been pulled partly off its roller, a chair had
been drawn up to the long mahogany table in the center of the room, with
the electric dome overhead, and everywhere, on chairs, over the floor,
heaped in stacks on the table, were papers.

After searching the lower floor, and finding everything securely locked,
I went up-stairs, convinced the intruder was still in the house. I made
a systematic search of every room, looking into closets and under beds.
Several times I had an impression, as I turned a corner, that some one
was just ahead of me, but I was always disappointed. I gave up at last,
and, going down to the library, made myself as comfortable as I could,
and waited for morning.

I heard Bella coming down the stairs, after seven sometime; she came
slowly, with flagging footsteps, as if the slightest sound would send
her scurrying to the upper regions again. A little later I heard her
rattling the range in the basement kitchen, and I went up-stairs and
dressed.

I was too tired to have a theory about the night visitor; in fact, from
that time on, I tried to have no theories of any kind. I was impressed
with only one thing--that the enemy or enemies of the late Allan
Fleming evidently carried their antagonism beyond the grave. As I put on
my collar I wondered how long I could stay in this game, as I now meant
to, and avoid lying in state in Edith's little drawing-room, with
flowers around and a gentleman in black gloves at the door.

I had my ankle strapped with adhesive that morning by my doctor and it
gave me no more trouble. But I caught him looking curiously at the blue
bruise on my forehead where Wardrop had struck me with the chair, and at
my nose, no longer swollen, but mustard-yellow at the bridge.

"Been doing any boxing lately," he said, as I laced up my shoe.

"Not for two or three years."

"New machine?"

"No."

He smiled at me quizzically from his desk.

"How does the other fellow look?" he inquired, and to my haltingly
invented explanation of my battered appearance, he returned the same
enigmatical smile.

That day was uneventful. Margery and Edith came to the house for about
an hour and went back to Fred's again.

A cousin of the dead man, an elderly bachelor named Parker, appeared
that morning and signified his willingness to take charge of the house
during that day. The very hush of his voice and his black tie pr