oor lodger, Mr. Barfield, kept his rooms, but obtained leave
of absence from his employers, and took refuge with some friends in
the country. Miss Mybus alone remained in the parlors. "When I am
comfortable," the old lady said, "nothing moves me, at my age. A murder
up two pairs of stairs is nearly the same thing as a murder in the next
house. Distance, you see, makes all the difference."

It mattered little to the police what the lodgers did. We had men in
plain clothes watching the house night and day. Everybody who went away
was privately followed; and the police in the district to which they
retired were warned to keep an eye on them, after that. As long as we
failed to put Mrs. Zebedee's extraordinary statement to any sort of
test--to say nothing of having proved unsuccessful, thus far, in tracing
the knife to its purchaser--we were bound to let no person living under
Mr. Crosscapel's roof, on the night of the murder, slip through our
fingers.

IV.

IN a fortnight more, Mrs. Zebedee had sufficiently recovered to make the
necessary statement--after the preliminary caution addressed to persons
in such cases. The surgeon had no hesitation, now, in reporting her to
be a sane woman.

Her station in life had been domestic service. She had lived for four
years in her last place as lady's-maid, with a family residing in
Dorsetshire. The one objection to her had been the occasional infirmity
of sleep-walking, which made it necessary that one of the other female
servants should sleep in the same room, with the door locked and the key
under her pillow. In all other respects the lady's-maid was described by
her mistress as "a perfect treasure."

In the last six months of her service, a young man named John Zebedee
entered the house (with a written character) as a footman. He soon fell
in love with the nice little lady's-maid, and she heartily returned
the feeling. They might have waited for years before they were in a
pecuniary position to marry, but for the death of Zebedee's uncle, who
left him a little fortune of two thousand pounds. They were now, for
persons in their station, rich enough to please themselves; and they
were married from the house in which they had served together, the
little daughters of the family showing their affection for Mrs. Zebedee
by acting as her bridesmaids.

The young husband was a careful man. He decided to employ his small
capital to the best advantage, by sheep-farming in Australia. Hi