r for a cup of
tea." I remarked that she took things easy, under the circumstances. She
answered that the landlady of a London lodging-house could not afford to
lose her wits, no matter what might happen.

I found the gate locked, and the shutters of the kitchen window
fastened. The back kitchen and back door were secured in the same way.
No person was concealed anywhere. Returning upstairs, I examined the
front parlor window. There, again, the barred shutters answered for the
security of that room. A cracked voice spoke through the door of the
back parlor. "The policeman can come in," it said, "if he will promise
not to look at me." I turned to the landlady for information. "It's my
parlor lodger, Miss Mybus," she said, "a most respectable lady." Going
into the room, I saw something rolled up perpendicularly in the bed
curtains. Miss Mybus had made herself modestly invisible in that way.
Having now satisfied my mind about the security of the lower part of
the house, and having the keys safe in my pocket, I was ready to go
upstairs.

On our way to the upper regions I asked if there had been any visitors
on the previous day. There had been only two visitors, friends of the
lodgers--and Mrs. Crosscapel herself had let them both out. My next
inquiry related to the lodgers themselves. On the ground floor there was
Miss Mybus. On the first floor (occupying both rooms) Mr. Barfield, an
old bachelor, employed in a merchant's office. On the second floor, in
the front room, Mr. John Zebedee, the murdered man, and his wife. In the
back room, Mr. Deluc; described as a cigar agent, and supposed to be
a Creole gentleman from Martinique. In the front garret, Mr. and Mrs.
Crosscapel. In the back garret, the cook and the housemaid. These were
the inhabitants, regularly accounted for. I asked about the servants.
"Both excellent characters," says the landlady, "or they would not be in
my service."

We reached the second floor, and found the housemaid on the watch
outside the door of the front room. Not as nice a woman, personally, as
the cook, and sadly frightened of course. Her mistress had posted
her, to give the alarm in the case of an outbreak on the part of Mrs.
Zebedee, kept locked up in the room. My arrival relieved the housemaid
of further responsibility. She ran downstairs to her fellow-servant in
the kitchen.

I asked Mrs. Crosscapel how and when the alarm of the murder had been
given.

"Soon after three this morning," s