ever did!"

"I don't believe it was yours, Jenny," said Millie Splay.

"Granted, I'm sure," returned Jenny Prask, tossing her head.

"But how many people will agree with me?" Millie Splay went on.

"I don't care, my lady."

"Don't you? You will, Jenny," said Millie in a hard and biting tone
which contrasted violently with the smoothness of her earlier questions.
"You are trying, very maliciously, to do a great injury to a young girl
who had never a thought of hurting your mistress, and you have only
succeeded in placing yourself in real danger."

Jenny tried to laugh contemptuously.

"Me in danger! Goodness me, what next, I wonder?"

"Just listen how your story works out, Jenny," and Millie Splay set it
out succinctly step by step.

"Mrs. Croyle never took chloroform as a drug. Mrs. Croyle had no
troubles. Mrs. Croyle was quite gay this week. Yet she was found dead
with a glass of chloroform arranged between her pillows, so that the
fumes must kill her--and Jenny Prask was her maid. A motor-car took the
news of Mrs. Croyle's death to London before it had occurred and took
the news from Rackham Park. There was only one motor-car in the
garage--Mrs. Croyle's--and Mrs. Croyle's chauffeur was engaged to Jenny
Prask, Mrs. Croyle's maid. London then telephones to Rackham Park for
corroboration of the news, and a woman's voice confirms it--an hour
before it was true. There are only two women to choose from, Mrs. Croyle
and Jenny Prask, her maid. But since Mrs. Croyle never took drugs, and
had no troubles or thoughts of suicide and was quite gay, it follows
that Jenny Prask----"

At this point Jenny interrupted in a voice in which fear was now very
distinctly audible. "Why, you can't mean--Oh, my lady, you are telling
me that--oh!"

"Yes, it begins to look black, Jenny, but I am not at the end," Millie
Splay continued implacably. Jenny was not the only woman in that house
who could fight if her darling was attacked. "You proceed to direct
suspicion at a young girl with the statement that you never saw your
mistress after half past nine that night or helped her to undress; and
to complete your treachery, you take the key of Mrs. Croyle's door which
you found inside her room this morning, and threw it where it may avert
inquiry from you and point it against another."

Jenny Prask flinched. The conviction with which Lady Splay announced as
a fact the opinion of the small conclave about the table quite deceived
her.