ver to meet him, and whispered four words
in his ear.

"See!" she added aloud. "See!"

Blake fell back into his chair with a thump.

"I, a doctor and a man of science and I never thought once of that!
What a damned fool I was!"

"_We_ was," amended Rosalie Le Grange.

XIII

ANNETTE TELLS THE TRUTH

It seemed to Blake, waiting in Rosalie's sitting-room for a quarter of
nine, that this silent house of mystery vibrated suppressed excitement.
He sat with his hands clenched, his body leaning forward, in the
attitude of one waiting the signal to strike. Rosalie, sitting opposite
him, sent over a smile of reassurance now and then, but neither spoke.

There was no need of words. They had talked out the smallest detail of
Rosalie's plot, even to mapping the location of the furniture. Inch by
inch, objection after objection, she had conquered his cautions and
scruples; had persuaded him that the dramatic method was the best
method. When Blake entered the house, nothing was left to chance except
the question whether Norcross would miss his engagement to "sit" with
Mrs. Markham. Rosalie settled that. From the front windows, she had
observed the green limousine automobile waiting by the curbing outside;
through her open registers she had caught the murmur of conversation.

So even Rosalie, whose tongue ran by custom in greased grooves, found
nothing to say until the little mantel clock tapped three times to
announce a quarter to the hour. It brought Blake to his feet with such
a jerk that Rosalie shook both her hands at him by way of caution. At
the door she stopped a second, put her lips to his ear.

"I don't have to tell you to be brave, boy," she said. "But keep your
head and don't git independent. You do what I say!"

She touched his side pocket, which bulged. "An' not too brash with
that!" she added. "Revolvers is good for bluffs but bad for real
business!"

Blake nodded. And for the second time they crept down the silent,
padded halls to those apartments above Mrs. Markham's alcove library.
They approached, then, not the closet door, but the door leading to
that boudoir which he had seen once before through Rosalie's hole in
the wall paper. Rosalie applied a key, turned it with infinite caution,
opened the door, motioned him in. The room appeared as before. The
light burned low over the white desk; the portieres hung close. Rosalie
pointed to the rounded, further end of the room--the space where he had