in the day that I saw all the details. My first impression was of
confusion and disorder: the room seemed to have been the scene of a
struggle. The overturned furniture, the clothes on the floor, the
picture, coupled with the print of the hand on the staircase and Miss
Jane's disappearance, all seemed to point to one thing.

And as if to prove it conclusively, Margery picked up Miss Jane's new
lace cap from the floor. It was crumpled and spotted with blood.

"She has been killed," Margery said, in a choking voice. "Killed, and
she had not an enemy in the world!"

"But where is she?" I asked stupidly.

Margery had more presence of mind than I had; I suppose it is because
woman's courage is mental and man's physical, that in times of great
strain women always make the better showing. While I was standing in the
middle of the room, staring at the confusion around me, Margery was
already on her knees, looking under the high, four-post bed. Finding
nothing there she went to the closet. It was undisturbed. Pathetic rows
of limp black dresses and on the shelves two black crepe bonnets were
mute reminders of the little old lady. But there was nothing else in the
room.

"Call Robert, the gardener," Margery said quickly, "and have him help
you search the grounds and cellars. I will take Bella and go through the
house. Above everything, keep it from Aunt Letitia as long as possible."

I locked the door into the disordered room, and with my head whirling, I
went to look for Robert.

It takes a short time to search an acre of lawn and shrubbery. There was
no trace of the missing woman anywhere outside the house, and from
Bella, as she sat at the foot of the front stairs with her apron over
her head, I learned in a monosyllable that nothing had been found in the
house. Margery was with Miss Letitia, and from the excited conversation
I knew she was telling her--not harrowing details, but that Miss Jane
had disappeared during the night.

The old lady was inclined to scoff at first.

"Look in the fruit closet in the store-room," I heard her say. "She's
let the spring lock shut on her twice; she was black in the face the
last time we found her."

"I did look; she's not there," Margery screamed at her.

"Then she's out looking for stump water to take that wart off her neck.
She said yesterday she was going for some."

"But her clothes are all here," Margery persisted. "We think some one
must have got in the house."

"If a