ould
like, if you do not mind, to get a view of the garden of Lemmingham
House from the window where you were standing that night, and to
have you explain the positions of the two men if you will."

"Yes, certainly--come, by all means," she replied, and led the way
forthwith. They had scarcely gone halfway down the passage to the
staircase, however, when they came abreast of the open doorway of
a room, dimly lit by a shaded lamp, wherein an elderly woman sat
huddled up in a deep chair, with her shaking head bowed over hands
that moved restlessly and aimlessly--after the uneasy manner of
an idiot's--and the shape of whose face could be but faintly seen
through the veil of white hair that fell loosely over it.

Cleek had barely time to recall Narkom's statement regarding the
semi-imbecile mother, when Miss Valmond gave a little cry of wonder
and ran into the room.

"Why, mother!" she said in her gentle way, "whatever are you doing
down here, dearest? I thought you were still asleep in the oratory.
When did you come down?"

The imbecile merely mumbled and muttered, and shook her nodding head,
neither answering nor taking any notice whatsoever.

"It is one of her bad nights," explained Miss Valmond, as she came
out and rejoined them. "We can do nothing with her when she is
like this. Horace, you will have to come home earlier than usual
to-night and help me to get her to bed." Then she went on, leading
the way upstairs, until they came at length to a sort of sanctuary
where Madonna faces looked down from sombre niches, and wax lights
burnt with a scented flame on a draped and cushioned prie dieu.
Here Miss Valmond, who was in the lead, went in, and, taking a
paper-wrapped parcel from beside the little altar, came back and put
it in her brother's hand and sent him on his way.

"Was it from there you saw the occurrence, Miss Valmond?" asked
Cleek, looking past her into "the dim religious light" of the
sanctuary.

"Oh, no," she made reply. "From the window of my bedroom, just on
the other side of the wall. In here, look, see!" And she opened a
door to the right and led them in, touching a key that flashed an
electric lamp into radiance and illuminated the entire room.

It was a large room furnished in dull oak and dark green after the
stately, sombre style of a Gothic chapel, and at one end there
was a curtained recess leading to a large bow window. At the other
there was a sort of altar banked high with white flowe