d and depressed. Mrs. Watson and Liddy
were making tea in the kitchen. In certain walks of life the tea-pot
is the refuge in times of stress, trouble or sickness: they give tea to
the dying and they put it in the baby's nursing bottle. Mrs. Watson
was fixing a tray to be sent in to me, and when I asked her about Rosie
she confirmed her absence.

"She's not here," she said; "but I would not think much of that, Miss
Innes. Rosie is a pretty young girl, and perhaps she has a sweetheart.
It will be a good thing if she has. The maids stay much better when
they have something like that to hold them here."

Gertrude had gone back to her room, and while I was drinking my cup of
hot tea, Mr. Jamieson came in.

"We might take up the conversation where we left off an hour and a half
ago," he said. "But before we go on, I want to say this: The person
who escaped from the laundry was a woman with a foot of moderate size
and well arched. She wore nothing but a stocking on her right foot,
and, in spite of the unlocked door, she escaped by the window."

And again I thought of Gertrude's sprained ankle. Was it the right or
the left?

CHAPTER VIII

THE OTHER HALF OF THE LINE

"Miss Innes," the detective began, "what is your opinion of the figure
you saw on the east veranda the night you and your maid were in the
house alone?"

"It was a woman," I said positively.

"And yet your maid affirms with equal positiveness that it was a man."

"Nonsense," I broke in. "Liddy had her eyes shut--she always shuts
them when she's frightened."

"And you never thought then that the intruder who came later that night
might be a woman--the woman, in fact, whom you saw on the veranda?"

"I had reasons for thinking it was a man," I said remembering the pearl
cuff-link.

"Now we are getting down to business. WHAT were your reasons for
thinking that?"

I hesitated.

"If you have any reason for believing that your midnight guest was Mr.
Armstrong, other than his visit here the next night, you ought to tell
me, Miss Innes. We can take nothing for granted. If, for instance, the
intruder who dropped the bar and scratched the staircase--you see, I
know about that--if this visitor was a woman, why should not the same
woman have come back the following night, met Mr. Armstrong on the
circular staircase, and in alarm shot him?"

"It was a man," I reiterated. And then, because I could think of no
other reason for my statement, I t