aid it, that was sure. And then I
remembered that I had not seen the dress in the room that day, and I
went in to look for it. It was gone. I came back and told Miss Hope.

"A black and white dress! Did it have a red collar?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Then I remember it. She wore a small black hat with a red quill with
that dress. You might look for the hat."

She followed me back to the room and stood in the doorway while I
searched. The hat was gone, too.

"Perhaps, after all, he's telling the truth," she said thoughtfully.
"Her fur coat isn't in the closet, is it?"

_It_ was gone. It is strange that, all day, I had never thought of
looking over her clothes and seeing what was missing. I hadn't known
all she had, of course, but I had seen her all winter in her fur
coat and admired it. It was a striped fur, brown and gray, and very
unusual. But with the coat missing, and a dress and hat gone, it began
to look as if I had been making a fool of myself, and stirring up a
tempest in a teacup. Miss Hope was as puzzled as I was.

"Anyhow, if he didn't kill her," she said, "it isn't because he did
not want to. Only last week she had hysterics in my dressing-room,
and said he had threatened to poison her. It was all Mr. Bronson, the
business manager, and I could do to quiet her."

She looked at her watch, and exclaimed that she was late, and would
have to hurry. I saw her down to her boat. The river had been falling
rapidly for the last hour or two, and I heard the boat scrape as it
went over the door-sill. I did not know whether to be glad that the
water was going down and I could live like a Christian again, or to be
sorry, for fear of what we might find in the mud that was always left.

Peter was lying where I had put him, on a folded blanket laid in a
clothes-basket. I went back to him, and sat down beside the basket.

"Peter!" I said. "Poor old Peter! Who did this to you? Who hurt you?"
He looked at me and whined, as if he wanted to tell me, if only he
could.

"Was it Mr. Ladley?" I asked, and the poor thing cowered close to his
bed and shivered. I wondered if it had been he, and, if it had, why he
had come back. Perhaps he had remembered the towel. Perhaps he would
come again and spend the night there. I was like Peter: I cowered and
shivered at the very thought.

At nine o'clock I heard a boat at the door. It had stuck there, and
its occupant was scolding furiously at the boatman. Soon after I heard
splashing,