could
have mentioned the title of one book in the library.

His mental equipment was of a character too rarely met with in the
profession to which he belonged. While up to the very moment of reaching
Sir Charles's house he had doubted the reality of the menace which
hung over this man, the note of danger which he had sensed at the very
threshold had convinced him, where more ordinary circumstantial evidence
might have left him in doubt.

It was perhaps pure imagination, but experience had taught him that it
was closely allied to clairvoyance.

Now upon his musing there suddenly intruded sounds of a muffled
altercation. That is to say, the speakers, who were evidently in the
lobby beyond the library door, spoke in low tones, perhaps in deference
to the presence of a visitor. Harley was only mildly interested, but
the voices had broken his train of thought, and when presently the door
opened to admit a very neat but rather grim-looking old lady he started,
then looked across at her with a smile.

Some of the grimness faded from the wrinkled old face, and the
housekeeper, for this her appearance proclaimed her to be, bowed in a
queer Victorian fashion which suggested that a curtsy might follow. One
did not follow, however. "I am sure I apologize, sir," she said. "Benson
did not tell me you had arrived."

"That's quite all right," said Harley, genially.

His smile held a hint of amusement, for in the comprehensive glance
which the old lady cast across the library, a glance keen to detect
disorder and from which no speck of dust could hope to conceal itself,
there remained a trace of that grimness which he had detected at the
moment of her entrance. In short, she was still bristling from a recent
encounter. So much so that detecting something sympathetic in Harley's
smile she availed herself of the presence of a badly arranged vase of
flowers to linger and to air her grievances.

"Servants in these times," she informed him, her fingers busily
rearranging the blooms, "are not what servants were in my young days."

"Unfortunately, that is so," Harley agreed.

The old lady tossed her head. "I do my best," she continued, "but that
girl would not have stayed in the house for one week if I had had my
way. Miss Phil is altogether too soft-hearted. Thank goodness, she goes
to-morrow, though."

"You don't refer to Miss Phil?" said Harley, intentionally
misunderstanding.

"Gracious goodness, no!" exclaimed the housekeepe