"Think hard." He was very much in earnest. "You knew the water was
rising and the Ladleys would have to be moved up to the second floor
front, where the clock stood. You went in there and looked around to
see if the room was ready, and you saw the clock. And knowing that the
Ladleys quarreled now and then, and were apt to throw things--"

"Nothing but a soap-dish, and that only once."

"--you took the clock to the attic and put it, say, in an old trunk."

"I did nothing of the sort. I went in, as you say, and I put up an old
splasher, because of the way he throws ink about. Then I wound the
clock, put the key under it, and went out."

"And the key is gone, too!" he said thoughtfully. "I wish I could find
that clock, Mrs. Pitman."

"So do I."

"Ladley went out Sunday afternoon about three, didn't he--and got back
at five?"

I turned and looked at him. "Yes, Mr. Howell," I said. "Perhaps _you_
know something about that."

"I?" He changed color. Twenty years of dunning boarders has made me
pretty sharp at reading faces, and he looked as uncomfortable as if he
owed me money. "I!" I knew then that I had been right about the voice.
It had been his.

"You!" I retorted. "You were here Sunday morning and spent some time
with the Ladleys. I am the old she-devil. I notice you didn't tell
your friend, Mr. Holcombe, about having been here on Sunday."

He was quick to recover. "I'll tell you all about it, Mrs. Pitman,"
he said smilingly. "You see, all my life, I have wished for an onyx
clock. It has been my ambition, my _Great Desire_. Leaving the house
that Sunday morning, and hearing the ticking of the clock up-stairs, I
recognized that it was an _onyx_ clock, clambered from my boat through
an upper window, and so reached it. The clock showed fight, but after
stunning it with a chair--"

"Exactly!" I said. "Then the thing Mrs. Ladley said she would not do
was probably to wind the clock?"

He dropped his bantering manner at once. "Mrs. Pitman," he said, "I
don't know what you heard or did not hear. But I want you to give me
a little time before you tell anybody that I was here that Sunday
morning. And, in return, I'll find your clock."

I hesitated, but however put out he was, he didn't look like a
criminal. Besides, he was a friend of my niece's, and blood is thicker
even than flood-water.

"There was nothing wrong about my being here," he went on, "but--I
don't want it known. Don't spoil a good story, Mrs. Pit