kitchen clock when I started my last game. I was alone in the kitchen
then. The game was just coming out when I heard a crash--"

She broke off suddenly with a painful sigh and a frightened glance at the
hood clock on the wall.

"One game!" Barrant glanced at his watch with, an air of mistrust. "You
mean two, don't you?"

Her eyes returned to his. She shook her head with a rapid tremulous
motion. "No!" she exclaimed excitedly. "One, only one!"

Barrant cast another glance at his watch, which he Still held in his hand.
"You are quite sure you did not play two?" he persisted, with a puzzled
glance.

"No, no--one!" She sprang to her feet excitedly.

"Very well--one," acquiesced Barrant soothingly. "One. Go on."

But his effort to calm her came too late. She cast a wild and fearful
glance at the wall behind her, as if there was something there which
frightened her.

"How it rings--how it rings!" Her indistinct utterance grew louder. "Yes,
Jasper, I hear. Yes, sir, I'm coming. Where's the supper tray?"

"Don't be afraid, Mrs. Thalassa," said Barrant, approaching her, but she
backed hurriedly away towards the door.

"Coming with the supper tray--coming with the supper tray.... What's that?
Ah-h-h-h-h!"

Her disjointed mutterings ended in a shrill scream which went ringing
through the stillness and seemed to linger in the room after she had
disappeared. Barrant heard her muttering and laughing as she descended the
stairs.

The sounds died away into a silence so absolute as to suggest the
impression of a universe suddenly stricken dumb. Barrant crossed the room
to the window, where he stood looking out, deep in thought.

What was the meaning of it all--of this latest scene in particular? The
game of patience so tempestuously concluded had occupied half-an-hour. He
had noted the time. Yet Mrs. Thalassa insisted she had played only one
game after half-past eight on the night of the murder. If he dared accept
such a computation of time an unimagined possibility in the case stood
revealed. But--a demented woman. "A parable in the mouth of a fool."
Perhaps it was because she was a fool that he had stumbled on this
revelation. She lacked the wit to lie about it.

If so--

His eyes, straying incuriously over the outstretched panorama of sea and
cliffs beneath the window, fell upon a man's outline scaling the cliff
path near the Moon Rock. Disturbed in his meditations, Barrant watched the
climber. He reached the top