ween your visits?"

"No." There was a trace of hesitation in the response.

"You used to come oftener?"

"Yes."

"How often?"

"Nearly every week." This time the hesitation before the reply was
plainly apparent.

"Why did you allow so long a time to elapse between this visit and the
last one when you had previously been in the habit of seeing your mother
nearly every week?"

Hazel again hesitated, as though at a loss for a reply.

"I have been so busy," she murmured at length.

"Is this your first visit to the moat-house since Mrs. Heredith came
here to live?"

"Yes." The response was so low as to be almost inaudible.

Caldew, who was the only person in the room with the deeper knowledge to
divine the drift of these questions, realized with something of a shock
that Merrington, with fewer facts to guide him, had reached his absolute
conclusion about the events of the last half-hour while he had wandered
perplexedly in a cloud of suspicions. The mental jump had been too great
for him, but Merrington had not hesitated to take it. Caldew waited
eagerly for the next question. It was some time in coming, and when it
did come it was not what Caldew expected. As though satisfied with the
previous answers he had received, Merrington branched off on another
track.

"How did you spend last night?" he asked abruptly.

"I do not understand you." There was the shadow of fear in the girl's
dark eyes as she answered.

"I will put it more plainly then. How did you occupy the time between
your arrival at the moat-house and bedtime?"

"I spent it with my mother in her rooms."

"Were you there all the time?"

It seemed to Caldew that the elder woman's attitude was that of a
listener. Though she still kept her face buried in her hands, her frame
slightly moved, as though she were listening to catch the reply.

"Yes." The word was spoken hurriedly, almost defiantly, but the girl's
eyes wavered and fell under Merrington's direct glance.

"May I take it, then, that you were in your mother's room at the time
Mrs. Heredith was murdered?"

This time Hazel did not reply audibly, but a faint movement of her head
indicated an affirmative.

"What would you say if your mother admits that you left her room before
the murder was committed, and that she did not see you until
afterwards?"

It was a clever trap, Caldew reluctantly conceded, this idea of playing
off the mother and daughter against each other, but one that he w