one step
away. Then he bent down again swiftly and poured the whole contents of
the tumbler he was holding into the little hollow of Mrs. Severance's
throat just above the collar-bone. _"Oh!"_ said the dead Mrs. Severance
in the tone of one who has turned on the cold in a shower unexpectedly,
and she opened her eyes.

"Rose!" said Mr. Piper snifflingly. "You aren't dead? You aren't dead,
dear? Rose! Rose!"

"Oh," said Mrs. Severance again, but this time tinily and with a flavor
of third acts about her, and she started to relax rather beautifully
into a Dying Gladiator pose.

"I'll get some more water, Mr. Piper," said Oliver briskly, and Mrs.
Severance began to sit up again.

"I--fainted--silly of me," she said with a consummate dazedness.
"Somebody was firing revolvers--"

"I tried--I tried--I--t-tried to s-shoot you, Rose," came from the damp
little heap on the floor that was Mr. Piper.

"Really, Sargent--" said Mrs. Severance comfortably. Then she turned
her head and made what Oliver was always to consider her most perfect
remark. "You must think us very queer people indeed, Mr. Crowe?" she
said smiling questioningly up at him.

Oliver's smile in answer held relief beyond words. It wasn't the
ordinary cosmos again--quite yet--but at least from now on he felt
perfectly sure that no matter how irregular anyone's actions might
become, in speech at least, every last least one of the social
conventions would be scrupulously observed.

"I think--if you could help me, Sargent--" said Mrs. Severance
delicately.

"Oh yes, yes, yes," from Mr. Piper very eagerly and with Oliver's and
his assistance Mrs. Severance's invalid form was aided into a deep
chair.

"And I think, now," she went on, "that if I could have just a little--"
She let the implication float in the air like a pretty bubble.
"Perhaps--it might help us all--"

"Oh _certainly,_ dear," from Mr. Piper. "I--"

"In the kitchen, you said, Mr. Piper. And you must let _me,"_ from
Oliver with complete decision. He hadn't bargained for that. Mr. Piper
might not notice Ted on the fire-escape--but then again he might--and
if he did he would certainly investigate--mute bound bodies were not
ordinary or normal adjuncts of even the most illegal of Riverside Drive
apartments. And then. Oliver's hand went down over the revolver in his
pocket--if necessary he stood perfectly ready to hold up Mr. Piper
at the point of his own pistol to preserve the inviolability of