ned back to the pleasant evening he had spent with his young lady
acquaintance. Somehow this went far to convince me of the fellow's
innocence for it was quite evident the murder and its mystery were not
uppermost in his thoughts at that moment. But my next question brought
him beck to realization of the present situation.

"And why didn't you use your transfer?"

"Only that the night, he was so pleasant, I desired to walk."

"And so you walked through the village, holding, perhaps, the transfer
in your hand?"

"I think, yes; but I do not remember the transfer in my hand, though he
may have been there."

And now the man's unquiet had returned. His lips twitched and his dark
eyes rolled about, as he endeavored in vain to look anywhere but at Miss
Lloyd. She, too, was controlling herself by a visible effort.

Anxious to bring the matter to a crisis, I said at once, and directly:

"And then you entered the gates of this place, you walked to the house,
you walked around the house to the back by way of the path which
leads around by the library veranda, and you accidentally dropped your
transfer near the veranda step."

I spoke quietly enough, but Louis immediately burst into voluble denial.

"No, no!" he exclaimed; "I do not go round by the office, I go the other
side of the house. I have tell you so many times."

"But I myself picked up your transfer near the office veranda."

"Then he blow there. The wind blow that night, oh, something fearful! He
blow the paper around the house, I think."

"I don't think so," I retorted; "I think you went around the house that
way, I think you paused at the office window--"

Just here I made a dramatic pause myself, hoping thus to appeal to the
emotional nature of my victim. And I succeeded. Louis almost shrieked
as he pressed his hands against his eyes, and cried out: "No! no! I
tell you I did not go round that way! I go round the other way, and the
wind--the wind, he blow my transfer all about!"

I tried a more quiet manner, I tried persuasive arguments, I finally
resorted to severity and even threats, but no admission could I get from
Louis, except that he had not gone round the house by way of the office.
I was positive the man was lying, and I was equally positive that Miss
Lloyd knew he was lying, and that she knew why, but the matter seemed
to me at a deadlock. I could have questioned her, but I preferred to do
that when Louis was not present. If she must suffer ign