that death must have
occurred about four or five hours earlier. Therefore Therese must have
waited till there seemed the least likelihood of her being seen or
heard, then at perhaps two o'clock in the morning had crept out of her
window and along the balcony, which ended a dozen feet from Roger's
room. From thence on there was merely a decorative stone ledge, barely
four inches wide. The closed window of the bedroom came first, its
projecting sill offering something to cling to, but on each side of
this was a space where the only support was the creeper on the wall.
It was a perilous undertaking. In some fashion she had evidently made
her way along the ledge. Roger did not yet know whether the accident
had occurred on the journey to the bathroom or from it; he would not
know for certain until the water in the Evian bottle was submitted to
an analysis. All that one could tell was the spot where she had
slipped and fallen, which was the first of the two dangerous places,
almost immediately over the front steps. The wistaria to which she had
clung was broken away in several spots, a whole spray of it fluttered
loose from the wall. Here it was that she must have lost her balance.
Her head had struck one of the ornamental stone baskets of fruit, after
which it seemed that her body had ricochetted, her head doubling under
her.

The broken bottle-neck caused the little doctor complete mystification.
He scented some painful secret, though without venturing anywhere near
the facts of the case. Roger refrained from enlightening him, not yet
able to discuss the affair with a stranger, although knowing that in
all probability the coroner would drag out a certain amount of the
truth at the inquest. Ultimately, of course, it would be impossible to
hush the matter up, since he had every intention of prosecuting
Sartorius to the full extent of the law, and the man's guilt could not
be established without implicating the dead woman.

By noon there was nothing more that could be done for the immediate
moment. The police had been notified, the inquest set for the day
after to-morrow. A warrant had been sworn out for the arrest of
Sartorius, who was not to be found. There was reason to believe he had
visited his residence in the Route de Grasse after leaving the Villa
Firenze, but so far no one appeared to have any knowledge of his
subsequent movements. His car was missing, which provided a likely
clue. It seemed wholly i