ticipated, it wasn't
this."

Sperry had a pocket flash, and when we found the door locked we
proceeded with our search for the key. The porch had been covered with
heavy vines, now dead of the November frosts, and showing, here and
there, dead and dried leaves that crackled as we touched them. In the
darkness something leaped against, me, and I almost cried out. It was,
however, only a collie dog, eager for the warmth of his place by the
kitchen fire.

"Here's the key," Sperry said, and held it out. The flash wavered in his
hand, and his voice was strained.

"So far, so good," I replied, and was conscious that my own voice rang
strange in my ears.

We admitted ourselves, and the dog, bounding past us, gave a sharp yelp
of gratitude and ran into the kitchen.

"Look here, Sperry," I said, as we stood inside the door, "they don't
want me here. They've sent for you, but I'm the most casual sort of an
acquaintance. I haven't any business here."

That struck him, too. We had both been so obsessed with the scene at
Mrs. Dane's that we had not thought of anything else.

"Suppose you sit down in the library," he said. "The chances are against
her coming down, and the servants don't matter."

As a matter of fact, we learned later that all the servants were out
except the nursery governess. There were two small children. There was a
servants' ball somewhere, and, with the exception of the butler, it was
after two before they commenced to straggle in. Except two plain-clothes
men from the central office, a physician who was with Elinor in her
room, and the governess, there was no one else in the house but the
children, asleep in the nursery.

As I sat alone in the library, the house was perfectly silent. But in
some strange fashion it had apparently taken on the attributes of the
deed that had preceded the silence. It was sinister, mysterious, dark.
Its immediate effect on my imagination was apprehension--almost terror.
Murder or suicide, here among the shadows a soul, an indestructible
thing, had been recently violently wrenched from its body. The body lay
in the room overhead. But what of the spirit? I shivered as I thought
that it might even then be watching me with formless eyes from some dark
corner.

Overwrought as I was, I was forced to bring my common sense to bear on
the situation. Here was a tragedy, a real and terrible one. Suppose we
had, in some queer fashion, touched its outer edges that night? Then
how