s of a hand laid
heavily over the mouth. I thought I knew what child this was, but you
have been a witness to my disappointment after forty-eight hours of
travel behind that wretched wagon."

"It came out of Mrs. Carew's grounds?" I repeated, ignoring everything
but the one important fact. "And during the time, you say, when Mrs.
Ocumpaugh's guests were assembling? Did you see any other vehicle leave
by the same gate at or before that time?"

"Yes, a carriage. It appeared to have no one in it. Indeed, I know that
it was empty, for I peered into it as it rolled by me down the street.
Of course I do not know what might have been under the seats."

"Nothing," was my sharp retort. "That was the carriage in which Mrs.
Carew had come up from the train. Did it pass out before the wagon?"

"Yes, by some minutes."

"There is nothing, then, to be gained by that."

"There does not seem to be."

Was his accent in uttering this simple phrase peculiar? I looked up to
make sure. But his face, which had been eloquent with one feeling or
another during every minute of this long interview till the present
instant, looked strangely impassive, and I did not know how to press the
question hovering on my lips.

"You have given me a heavy task," I finally remarked, "and you offer
very little assistance in the way of conjecture. Yet you must have
formed some."

He toyed with his beard, combing it with his nervous, muscular fingers,
and as I watched how he lingered over the tips, caressing them before he
dropped them, I felt that he was toying with my perplexities in much the
same fashion and with an equal satisfaction. Angry and out of all
patience with him, I blurted out:

"I will do without your aid. I will solve this mystery and earn your
money if not that of Mr. Ocumpaugh, with no assistance save that
afforded by my own wits."

"I expect you will," he retorted; and for the first time since I burst
in upon him like one dropping from the clouds through the unapproachable
doorway on the upper floor, he lost that look of extreme tension which
had nerved his aged figure into something of the aspect of youth. With
it vanished his impressiveness. It was simply a tired old man I now
followed upstairs to the side door. As I paused to give him a final nod
and an assurance of intended good faith toward him, he made a kindly
enough gesture in the direction of my old room below and said:

"Don't worry about the little fellow down there.