f, for one, was known to have had no very
friendly feeling for the dead man. As to the reason for Louise's
flight from California, or why she had not gone to the Fitzhughs', or
to some of her people in town, he had no more information than I had.
With the death of her stepfather and the prospect of the immediate
return of the family, things had become more and more impossible. I
gathered that Thomas was as relieved as I at the turn events had taken.
No, she did not know of either of the deaths in the family.

Taken all around, I had only substituted one mystery for another.

If I knew now why Rosie had taken the basket of dishes, I did not know
who had spoken to her and followed her along the drive. If I knew that
Louise was in the lodge, I did not know why she was there. If I knew
that Arnold Armstrong had spent some time in the lodge the night before
he was murdered, I was no nearer the solution of the crime. Who was
the midnight intruder who had so alarmed Liddy and myself? Who had
fallen down the clothes chute? Was Gertrude's lover a villain or a
victim? Time was to answer all these things.

CHAPTER XIII

LOUISE

The doctor from Englewood came very soon, and I went up to see the sick
girl with him. Halsey had gone to supervise the fitting of the car
with blankets and pillows, and Gertrude was opening and airing Louise's
own rooms at the house. Her private sitting-room, bedroom and
dressing-room were as they had been when we came. They occupied the
end of the east wing, beyond the circular staircase, and we had not
even opened them.

The girl herself was too ill to notice what was being done. When, with
the help of the doctor, who was a fatherly man with a family of girls
at home, we got her to the house and up the stairs into bed, she
dropped into a feverish sleep, which lasted until morning. Doctor
Stewart--that was the Englewood doctor--stayed almost all night, giving
the medicine himself, and watching her closely. Afterward he told me
that she had had a narrow escape from pneumonia, and that the cerebral
symptoms had been rather alarming. I said I was glad it wasn't an
"itis" of some kind, anyhow, and he smiled solemnly.

He left after breakfast, saying that he thought the worst of the danger
was over, and that she must be kept very quiet.

"The shock of two deaths, I suppose, has done this," he remarked,
picking up his case. "It has been very deplorable."

I hastened to set him righ