he said laughingly. "Everybody's
surprised because I'm so youthful. My daughter's coming home this
afternoon. That's why I'm so happy. They wouldn't let me go west with
her, but when one's as advanced as I young people don't bother much."

Garth experienced a quick sympathy, yet behind the mental deterioration
of extreme old age something useful might lurk.

"You slept in the front part of the house last night," he tried. "You
probably heard the shot."

She shook her head. Her sunken mouth twitched in a smile a trifle sly.

"Once I drop off it would take a cannonade to wake me up."

For no apparent reason her youthful and atrocious laugh rippled again.

"Please," Garth said gently. "Mr. Taylor--"

"At my age," she broke in, "you say when a younger person dies: 'Ha, ha!
I stole a march on that one.'"

She arose and with a curious absence of sound moved towards the door.

"I must go now. I am knitting a sweater. It was for my son-in-law. Now
that he's put himself out of the way it might fit you."

The door closed behind her slender figure, and Garth tugged at his watch
ribbon, wondering. Her actions had been too determined, her last words
too studied. They had seemed to hold a threat. Was she as senile as she
appeared, or had she tried to throw sand in his eyes?

He rang and sent for the cook Clara, unaware that a new and significant
surprise awaited him in this dreary room. The girl, when she came, was
young, and, in a coarse mold, pretty. When she sat down the light
disclosed a tremulousness as pronounced as McDonald's. Before Garth
could question her she burst out hysterically:

"I am going to leave this house. I was going to leave to-day, anyway."

Garth pitched his voice on a cold, even note.

"For the present you'll stay. Mr. Taylor didn't kill himself. He was
murdered."

She covered her face with her hands, shivering.

"I didn't kill him. I didn't--"

"But," Garth snapped, "you know who did."

She shook her head with stubborn vehemence.

"I don't know anything," she answered, "except that I must leave this
house."

"Why? Because you think the old lady's crazy, and she frightens you? I
want to know about that."

As Clara lowered her hands the increased fear, rather than the tears in
her eyes, held Garth. She shook her head again.

"I've only been here a week. I haven't seen much of her. She's only been
to meals once or twice, and then she's scarcely said a word."

She glanced about the ro