rubbery.

"Then a cloud heavier than the others came up, I suppose. Anyway, it was
much darker. There wasn't a light in the house, except in my room and
Berne Webster's. Yours was out, I remember. I passed by the front of the
house then, and went around to the north side. It was darker there, I
thought, than it had been under the trees on the south side."

"How long had you been out then, altogether?"

"Thirty or forty minutes." He looked at his watch. "It's a quarter past
twelve now. Let me see. I found the body a few minutes after I changed
over to the north side. I guess I found it about five minutes before
midnight--certainly not more than twenty minutes ago."

Hastings betrayed his impatience only by squinting under his spectacles
and down the line of his nose, eying Wilton closely.

"All right, judge! Let's have it."

"I was going along slowly, very slowly, not doing much more than feeling
my way with my feet on the close-shaven grass. It was the darkest night
I ever saw. Literally, I couldn't have seen my hand in front of me.

"I had decided to turn about and go indoors when I was conscious of some
movement, or slight sound, directly in front of me, and downward, at my
feet. I got that impression."

"What movement? You mean the sound of a fall?"

"No; not that exactly."

"A footstep?"

"No. I hadn't any definite idea what sort of noise it was. I did think
that, perhaps, it was a dog or a cat. Just then my foot came in contact
with something soft. I stooped down instinctively, immediately.

"At that moment, that very second, a light flashed on in Arthur's
bedroom. That's between this room and the big ballroom--on this floor,
of course. That light threw a long, illuminating shaft into the murky
darkness, the end of it coming just far enough to touch me and--what I
found--the woman's body. I saw it by that light before I had time to
touch it with my hand."

The judge stopped and drew heavily on his dead cigar.

"All right. See anything else?" Hastings urged.

"Yes; I saw Berne Webster. He had made the noise which attracted my
attention."

"How do you know that?"

"He must have. He was stooping down, too, on the other side of the body,
facing me, when the light went on----"

Sloane, twisting nervously in his chair, cut into Wilton's narrative.

"I can put this much straight," he said in shrill complaint: "I turned
on the light you're talking about. I hadn't been able to sleep."

"Let's have t