took a night electric car to Wynton, and
walked the three miles to Bellwood. Neither of us was talkative, and I
imagine we were both thinking of Margery, and the news she would have to
hear.

It had been raining, and the roads were vile. Once Wardrop turned
around to where we could hear the detective splashing along, well
behind.

"I hope he's enjoying it," he said. "I brought you by this road, so he'd
have to wade in mud up to his neck."

"The devil you did!" I exclaimed. "I'll have to be scraped with a knife
before I can get my clothes off."

We both felt better for the laugh; it was a sort of nervous reaction.
The detective was well behind, but after a while Wardrop stood still,
while I plowed along. They came up together presently, and the three of
us trudged on, talking of immaterial things.

At the door Wardrop turned to the detective with a faint smile. "It's
raining again," he said, "you'd better come in. You needn't worry about
me; I'm not going to run away, and there's a couch in the library."

The detective grinned, and in the light from the hall I recognized the
man I had followed to the police station two nights before.

"I guess I will," he said, looking apologetically at his muddy clothes.
"This thing is only a matter of form, anyhow."

But he didn't lie down on the couch. He took a chair in the hall near
the foot of the stairs, and we left him there, with the evening paper
and a lamp. It was a queer situation, to say the least.

CHAPTER X

BREAKING THE NEWS

Wardrop looked so wretched that I asked him into my room, and mixed him
some whisky and water. When I had given him a cigar he began to look a
little less hopeless.

"You've been a darned sight better to me than I would have been to you,
under the circumstances," he said gratefully.

"I thought we would better arrange about Miss Margery before we try to
settle down," I replied. "What she has gone through in the last
twenty-four hours is nothing to what is coming to-morrow. Will you tell
her about her father?"

He took a turn about the room.

"I believe it would come better from you," he said finally. "I am in the
peculiar position of having been suspected by her father of robbing him,
by you of carrying away her aunt, and now by the police and everybody
else of murdering her father."

"I do not suspect you of anything," I justified myself. "I don't think
you are entirely open, that is all, Wardrop. I think you are damagin