crossed over to the mantel-shelf, and lifted the clock that lay there.

Why I did this I scarcely know. I am naturally very orderly (some people
call me precise) and it probably fretted me to see so valuable an
object out of its natural position. However that was, I lifted it up and
set it upright, when to my amazement it began to tick. Had the hands not
stood as they did when my eyes first fell on the clock lying face up on
the floor at the dead girl's side, I should have thought the works had
been started since that time by Mr. Gryce or some other officious
person. But they pointed now as then to a few minutes before five and
the only conclusion I could arrive at was, that the clock had been in
running order when it fell, startling as this fact appeared in a house
which had not been inhabited for months.

But if it had been in running order and was only stopped by its fall
upon the floor, why did the hands point at five instead of twelve which
was the hour at which the accident was supposed to have happened? Here
was matter for thought, and that I might be undisturbed in my use of it,
I hastened to lay the clock down again, even taking the precaution to
restore the hands to the exact position they had occupied before I had
started up the works. If Mr. Gryce did not know their secret, why so
much the worse for Mr. Gryce.

I was back in my old place by the register before the folding-doors
unclosed again. I was conscious of a slight flush on my cheek, so I took
from my pocket that perplexing grocer-bill and was laboriously going
down its long line of figures, when Mr. Gryce reappeared.

He had to my surprise a woman's hat in his hand.

"Well!" thought I, "what does this mean!"

It was an elegant specimen of millinery, and was in the latest style. It
had ribbons and flowers and bird wings upon it, and presented, as it was
turned about by Mr. Gryce's deft hand, an appearance which some might
have called charming, but to me was simply grotesque and absurd.

"Is that a last spring's hat?" he inquired.

"I don't know, but I should say it had come fresh from the milliner's."

"I found it lying with a pair of gloves tucked inside it on an otherwise
empty shelf in the dining-room closet. It struck me as looking too new
for a discarded hat of either of the Misses Van Burnam. What do you
think?"

"Let me take it," said I.

"O, it's been worn," he smiled, "several times. And the hat-pin is in
it, too."

"There is so