understand you have had a
fire up there, too. A fire and shooting in one night is rather lively
for a quiet place like that."

"It is as quiet as a boiler-shop," I replied, as I turned to go.

"And you are still going to stay?"

"Until I am burned out," I responded. And then on my way down the
steps, I turned around suddenly.

"Doctor," I asked at a venture, "have you ever heard of a child named
Lucien Wallace?"

Clever as he was, his face changed and stiffened. He was on his guard
again in a moment.

"Lucien Wallace?" he repeated. "No, I think not. There are plenty of
Wallaces around, but I don't know any Lucien."

I was as certain as possible that he did. People do not lie readily to
me, and this man lied beyond a doubt. But there was nothing to be
gained now; his defenses were up, and I left, half irritated and wholly
baffled.

Our reception was entirely different at Doctor Stewart's. Taken into
the bosom of the family at once, Flinders tied outside and nibbling the
grass at the roadside, Gertrude and I drank some home-made elderberry
wine and told briefly of the fire. Of the more serious part of the
night's experience, of course, we said nothing. But when at last we
had left the family on the porch and the good doctor was untying our
steed, I asked him the same question I had put to Doctor Walker.

"Shot!" he said. "Bless my soul, no. Why, what have you been doing up
at the big house, Miss Innes?"

"Some one tried to enter the house during the fire, and was shot and
slightly injured," I said hastily. "Please don't mention it; we wish
to make as little of it as possible."

There was one other possibility, and we tried that. At Casanova
station I saw the station master, and asked him if any trains left
Casanova between one o'clock and daylight. There was none until six
A.M. The next question required more diplomacy.

"Did you notice on the six-o'clock train any person--any man--who
limped a little?" I asked. "Please try to remember: we are trying to
trace a man who was seen loitering around Sunnyside last night before
the fire."

He was all attention in a moment.

"I was up there myself at the fire," he said volubly. "I'm a member of
the volunteer company. First big fire we've had since the summer house
burned over to the club golf links. My wife was sayin' the other day,
'Dave, you might as well 'a' saved the money in that there helmet and
shirt.' And here last night they came