ght mean the girl I had just seen
carried out. It was an unpleasant experience, hearing this bird shriek
out these cries in the face of the man lying dead at my feet."

"Miss Butterworth, you didn't simply stand over that man. You knelt down
and looked in his face."

"I acknowledge it, and caught my dress in the filagree of the cross.
Naturally I would not stand stock still with a man drawing his last
breath under my eye."

"And what else did you do? You went to the table----"

"Yes, I went to the table."

"And moved the inkstand?"

"Yes, I moved the inkstand, but very carefully, sir, very carefully."

"Not so carefully but that I could see where it had been sitting before
you took it up: the square made by its base in the dust of the table did
not coincide with the place afterwards occupied by it."

"Ah, that comes from your having on your glasses and I not. I endeavored
to set it down in the precise place from which I lifted it."

"Why did you take it up at all? What were you looking for?"

"For clews, Mr. Gryce. You must forgive me, but I was seeking for clews.
I moved several things. I was hunting for the line of writing which
ought to explain this murder."

"The line of writing?"

"Yes. I have not told you what the young girl said as she slipped with
her companion into the crowd."

"No; you have spoken of no words. Have you any such clew as that? Miss
Butterworth, you are fortunate, very fortunate."

Mr. Gryce's look and gesture were eloquent, but Miss Butterworth, with
an access of dignity, quietly remarked:

"I was not to blame for being in the way when they passed, nor could I
help hearing what she said."

"And what was it, madam? Did she mention a paper?"

"Yes, she cried in what I now remember to have been a tone of affright:
'You have left that line of writing behind!' I did not attach much
importance to these words then, but when I came upon the dying man, so
evidently the victim of murder, I recalled what his late visitor had
said and looked about for this piece of writing."

"And did you find it, Miss Butterworth? I am ready, as you see, for any
revelation you may now make."

"For one which would reflect dishonor on me? If I had found any paper
explaining this tragedy, I should have felt bound to have called the
attention of the police to it. I did notify them of the crime itself."

"Yes, madam; and we are obliged to you; but how about your silence in
regard to the fact of two pers