where you can find her any day
selling needles and thread."

"I have noticed that shop," I admitted, not knowing whether to give more
or less weight to my suspicions in thus finding the mayor's house under
the continued gaze of another watchful eye.

"You will find two women there," the amiable Mr. Robinson hastened to
explain. "The one with a dark red spot just under her hair is Bess. But
perhaps she doesn't interest you. She always has me. If it had not been
for one fact, I should have suspected her of having been in some way
connected with the strange doings we have just been considering. She was
not a member of the household during the occupancy of Mrs. Crispin and
the Westons, yet these unusual manifestations went on just the same."

"Yes, I noted that."

"So her connivance is eliminated."

"Undoubtedly. I am still disposed to credit the Misses Quinlan with the
whole ridiculous business. They could not bear to see strangers in the
house they had once called their own, and took the only means suggested
to their crazy old minds to rid the place of them."

Mr. Robinson shook his head, evidently unconvinced. The temptation was
great to strengthen my side of the argument by a revelation of their
real motive. Once acquainted with the story of the missing bonds he
could not fail to see the extreme probability that the two sisters,
afflicted as they were with dementia, should wish to protect the wealth
which was once so near their grasp, from the possibility of discovery by
a stranger. But I dared not take him quite yet into my full confidence.
Indeed, the situation did not demand it. I had learned from him what I
was most anxious to know, and was now in a position to forward my own
projects without further aid from him. Almost as if he had read my
thoughts, Mr. Robinson now hastened to remark:

"I find it difficult to credit these poor old souls with any such
elaborate plan to empty the house, even had they possessed the most
direct means of doing so, for no better reason than this one you state.
Had money been somehow involved, or had they even thought so, it would
be different. They are a little touched in the head on the subject of
money; which isn't very strange considering their present straits. They
even show an interest in other people's money. They have asked me more
than once if any of their former neighbors have seemed to grow more
prosperous since leaving Franklin Street."

"I see; touched, touched!" I