ous night's experience;
Mrs. Butler was always pale, and Margery had been so since her father's
death.

The game was over when I went into the den. As usual, Mrs. Butler left
the room almost immediately, and went to the piano across the hall. I
had grown to accept her avoidance of me without question. Fred said it
was because my overwhelming vitality oppressed her. Personally, I think
it was because the neurasthenic type of woman is repulsive to me. No
doubt Mrs. Butler deserved sympathy, but her open demand for it found me
cold and unresponsive.

I told Margery briefly of my visit to Bellwood that morning. She was as
puzzled as I was about the things Heppie had found in the chest. She
was relieved, too.

"I am just as sure, now, that she is living, as I was a week ago that
she was dead," she said, leaning back in her big chair. "But what
terrible thing took her away? Unless--"

"Unless what?"

"She had loaned my father a great deal of money," Margery said, with
heightened color. "She had not dared to tell Aunt Letitia, and the money
was to be returned before she found it out. Then--things went wrong with
the Borough Bank, and--the money did not come back. If you know Aunt
Jane, and how afraid she is of Aunt Letitia, you will understand how
terrible it was for her. I have wondered if she would go--to Plattsburg,
and try to find father there."

"The _Eagle_ man is working on that theory now," I replied. "Margery, if
there was a letter 'C' added to eleven twenty-two, would you know what
it meant?"

She shook her head in the negative.

"Will you answer two more questions?" I asked.

"Yes, if I can."

"Do you know why you were chloroformed last night, and who did it?"

"I think I know who did it, but I don't understand. I have been trying
all day to think it out. I'm afraid to go to sleep to-night."

"You need not be," I assured her. "If necessary, we will have the city
police in a ring around the house. If you know and don't tell, Margery,
you are running a risk, and more than that, you are protecting a person
who ought to be in jail."

"I'm not sure," she persisted. "Don't ask me about it, please."

"What does Mrs. Butler say?"

"Just what she said this morning. And she says valuable papers were
taken from under her pillow. She was very ill--hysterical, all
afternoon."

The gloom and smouldering fire of the _Sonata Apassionata_ came to us
from across the hall. I leaned over and took Margery's small h