tighten the noose round _her_ neck, I can promise you, and with my own
hands, too. The earth is well rid of _her_ kind."

"In which I profoundly agree. And--hello! here's Miss Duggan. At
half-past ten, then. I'll make arrangements for you to slip in
unnoticed. It's going to be as sensational as a first-rate London
melodrama. And--not a word, old chap?"

"Not one of 'em."

"Thanks very much. I'll rely on you, then. And we might even want you to
lend a hand. What's that, Miss Duggan? Lend a hand for what? Oh, simply
in capturing a somewhat wild mare that has got loose in this part of the
country and has been kicking up a pretty shindy all over the place. Mr.
Tavish's strength and knowledge of horse-flesh ought to be a real help,
eh, my friend?"

Here he winked broadly at the vanishing Tavish, and brought up a chair
for Maud Duggan after she had greeted Mr. Narkom and given Dollops a
little forlorn smile as Cleek introduced him to her notice.

"And have you followed up any of the clues which you discovered
yesterday, Mr. Deland, to the utter desolation of all my hopes and
fears?" she asked him wearily, sitting down with her hands lying loosely
in her lap, a very picture of despondent womanhood.

He bowed his head.

"I'm afraid I have. Several of them. And yet--I don't know. Anyhow, I
want you all to come along to the library again this morning--and for
the last time. After to-day you ought not to be put to any further worry
and inconvenience, my dear young lady. But what I want _you_ to do is to
assemble all the members of the immediate household together for me, and
tell them I've discovered a perfectly new clue altogether--and from a
perfectly new person--someone who, so far as you or I know, has never
even entered the house at all, at any time. So you see, that's not such
bad news, is it?"

At these words her head came up upon the slim column of her neck, and
she looked into his face with suddenly bright eyes.

"You mean to say that--you mean to say that you can prove that neither
Ross nor--Captain Macdonald is guilty of that terrible crime?" she gave
out in a shrill voice, shutting her hands together in her emotion, and
breathing hard. "Oh, Mr. Deland, if you have only found out _that_----"

"Not quite so fast, please," he responded a trifle sternly. "I'm afraid
I can't give you any of the facts yet. Only I want you to know that--in
one direction, at any rate--you may have some cause to hope. That is, of