, "I've a beautiful idea! We'll play an April Fools' joke
on them. We'll make them all think you still are here and while they're
dodging about trying to keep away from you we'll slip away together and
be at the other end of the house." By a gesture of one hand and with a
finger of the other across her lips to impress the need of secrecy, she
brought Mrs. Hadley-Smith into the little conspiracy.

"Don't blindfold yourself, Claire," she whispered. "You must help Miss
Ballister and me to play a joke on the others. You are to keep the bells
rattling after we are gone. See? This way."

With that she shifted the leathern loop from about Miss Ballister's neck
and replaced it over Mrs. Hadley-Smith's head which bent forward to
receive it. Smiling in appreciation of the proposed hoax the widow took
a step or two.

"Watch!" whispered Miss Smith in Miss Ballister's ear. "See how well the
trick works. There--what did I tell you?"

For instantly all the players, deceived by the artifice, were falling
back, huddling away from the fancied danger zone as Mrs. Hadley-Smith
went toward them. In the same instant Miss Smith silently had opened the
nearest door and, beckoning to Miss Ballister to follow her, was
tiptoeing softly out into the empty hall. The door closed gently behind
them.

Miss Ballister laughed a forced little laugh. She turned, presenting her
back to Miss Smith.

"Now untie me, please do." In her eagerness to be free she panted out
the words.

"Surely," agreed Miss Smith. "But I think we should get entirely away,
out of sight, before the bells stop ringing and the hoax begins to dawn
on them. There's a little study right here at the end of the hall. Shall
we go there and hide from them? I'll relieve you of that handkerchief
then."

"Yes, yes; but quickly, please!" Miss Ballister's note was insistent;
you might call it pleading, certainly it was agitated. "Being tied this
way gives one such a trapped sort of feeling--it's horrid, really it is.
I'll never let any one tie my hands again so long as I live. It's enough
to give one hysterics--honestly it is.

"I understand. Come on, then."

With one hand slipped inside the curve of the other's elbow Miss Smith
hurried her to the study door masked beneath the broad stairs, and
opening it, ushered her into the inner room.

It contained an occupant: a smallish man with mild-looking gray eyes,
who at their entrance rose up from where he sat, staring steadily at
them