eard," I said dryly, "that undertakers' assistants are
jovial young men. A man's sense of humor seems to be in inverse
proportion to the gravity of his profession."

"A man's sense of humor is a barbarous and a cruel thing, Miss Innes,"
he admitted. "It is to the feminine as the hug of a bear is to the
scratch of--well;--anything with claws. Is that you, Thomas? Come in."

Thomas Johnson stood in the doorway. He looked alarmed and
apprehensive, and suddenly I remembered the sealskin dressing-bag in
the lodge. Thomas came just inside the door and stood with his head
drooping, his eyes, under their shaggy gray brows, fixed on Mr.
Jamieson.

"Thomas," said the detective, not unkindly, "I sent for you to tell us
what you told Sam Bohannon at the club, the day before Mr. Arnold was
found here, dead. Let me see. You came here Friday night to see Miss
Innes, didn't you? And came to work here Saturday morning?"

For some unexplained reason Thomas looked relieved.

"Yas, sah," he said. "You see it were like this: When Mistah
Armstrong and the fam'ly went away, Mis' Watson an' me, we was lef' in
charge till the place was rented. Mis' Watson, she've bin here a good
while, an' she warn' skeery. So she slep' in the house. I'd bin
havin' tokens--I tol' Mis' Innes some of 'em--an' I slep' in the lodge.
Then one day Mis' Watson, she came to me an' she sez, sez she, 'Thomas,
you'll hev to sleep up in the big house. I'm too nervous to do it any
more.' But I jes' reckon to myself that ef it's too skeery fer her,
it's too skeery fer me. We had it, then, sho' nuff, and it ended up
with Mis' Watson stayin' in the lodge nights an' me lookin' fer work at
de club."

"Did Mrs. Watson say that anything had happened to alarm her?"

"No, sah. She was jes' natchally skeered. Well, that was all, far's I
know, until the night I come over to see Mis' Innes. I come across the
valley, along the path from the club-house, and I goes home that way.
Down in the creek bottom I almost run into a man. He wuz standin' with
his back to me, an' he was workin' with one of these yere electric
light things that fit in yer pocket. He was havin' trouble--one minute
it'd flash out, an' the nex' it'd be gone. I hed a view of 'is white
dress shirt an' tie, as I passed. I didn't see his face. But I know
it warn't Mr. Arnold. It was a taller man than Mr. Arnold. Beside
that, Mr. Arnold was playin' cards when I got to the club-house, same's