s way."

And after this came the evident interest of Ashton-Kirk in the matter.

"I don't know but what he was interested even before that," thought Bat.
"He saw something I didn't see--which ain't hard to do, for I'm a dub at
that kind of a thing."

He remembered that Nora was even more agitated when he saw her again
than she had been the first time. Young Burton was innocent! He must be
freed! She _knew_ he didn't do it! She _knew_!

"How did she?" Bat asked himself. "That's strong talk."

And, then, there was the bruise upon her forehead. Nora had deceived
them about that. There were the footprints behind the rose arbor, there
was the small revolver, there were the marks of the "creepers" in the
yard at Stanwick and upon the scaffold outside Nora's window. And, then,
there was also the apparently sudden resolution upon the girl's part to
place her jewels in a place of security.

"People don't get these sudden notions for no reason at all," mused Bat.
"And Nora had her own reasons for doing that. But," and there was a
little tightening of his mind, an unpleasant straining which made him
want to draw back from the thought, "she didn't want to tell anything
about it. I believe in Nora. Nothing could drive me from that; but she
is holding back on us; she knows things that she won't tell."

At some of these things Bat could guess; some others Ashton-Kirk's hints
had partly covered. But the background, the reason for it all, puzzled
him. He pondered deeply for a long time, but not a ray of light appeared
through the mists that obscured the matter.

"But this burglar fellow's got something I want to know!" Bat sat up,
and his forceful hands shut tightly. "And maybe it's just the thing we
need. Maybe it's just the----"

He stopped. When he had turned off his single gas jet a half hour
before, all had been dark outside. Now there was a flare of light from
below. He arose and looked out. A wall loomed across the courtyard; and
in the previous darkness he had thought it blank. But now he saw there
were windows in it; and two of them, on the ground floor, were
illuminated.

"Huh!" said Bat, as he stood looking down. "There's old Bohlmier, and
exercising his old flute again."

The bald dome of the old Swiss shone under the gas light; the scrap of
thumbed music was propped up against a bottle, and he was blowing
gravely into his instrument, his fingers moving up and down and along
the keys with methodical precision.