tragedy had taken place. The cabinet had been
replaced and the shelves set back upon it; but the latter were empty,
and neither on them nor on the adjacent mantel-piece did I see the
clock. This set me thinking, and I made up my mind to have another look
at that clock. By dint of judicious questions I found that it had been
carried into the third room, where we soon found it lying on a shelf of
the same closet where the hat had been discovered by Mr. Gryce. Franklin
had put it there, fearing that the sight of it might affect Howard, and
from the fact that the hands stood as I had left them, I gathered that
neither he nor any of the family had discovered that it was in running
condition.

Assured of this, I astonished them by requesting to have it taken down
and set up on the table, which they had no sooner done than it started
to tick just as it had done under my hand a few nights before.

The girls, greatly startled, surveyed each other wonderingly.

"Why, it's going!" cried Caroline.

"Who could have wound it!" marvelled Isabella.

"Hark!" I cried. The clock had begun to strike.

It gave forth five clear notes.

"Well, it's a mystery!" Isabella exclaimed. Then seeing no astonishment
in my face, she added: "Did you know about this, Miss Butterworth?"

"My dear girls," I hastened to say, with all the impressiveness
characteristic of me in my more serious moments. "I do not expect you to
ask me for any information I do not volunteer. This is hard, I know; but
some day I will be perfectly frank with you. Are you willing to accept
my aid on these terms?"

"O yes," they gasped, but they looked not a little disappointed.

"And now," said I, "leave the clock where it is, and when your brother
comes home, show it to him, and say that having the curiosity to examine
it you were surprised to find it going, and that you had left it there
for him to see. He will be surprised also, and as a consequence will
question first you and then the police to find out who wound it. If they
acknowledge having done it, you must notify me at once, for that's what
I want to know. Do you understand, Caroline? And, Isabella, do you feel
that you can go through all this without dropping a word concerning me
and my interest in this matter?"

Of course they answered yes, and of course it was with so much
effusiveness that I was obliged to remind them that they must keep a
check on their enthusiasm, and also to suggest that they should not