his absence to Bridges by means of a candle placed
in her window, had compelled her to entice him to the cottage by the
signal, and was then supposed to have murdered him by throwing him into
the mill dam. But though Bridges was seen entering the cottage and was
not seen afterwards, the charge of murder failed because the detectives
were unable to find his body. Theberton protested his innocence; Mary
Theberton said her husband locked her in her room before admitting
Bridges, and she knew nothing of what took place between the two men.

There was much popular sympathy with her during the trial as the belief
gained ground that the relations between her and Bridges were innocent,
though indiscreet; the outcome of a craving for sympathy which had led
an unhappy young wife to confide her troubles to a former schoolfellow.
She was the daughter of an architect, and had been reared in refinement
and educated well, but she had been disowned by her father for marrying
beneath her. Her husband ill-used her, and her story was that she had
sought the assistance of an old schoolfellow in order to go to London to
earn a living for herself and her little daughter. When the trial was
over Theberton emigrated, and his wife disappeared, although there was
some talk of putting on foot a public subscription for her. This was the
end of "The Death Signal Case," for the mystery of the disappearance of
Bridges was never solved.

Caldew wondered by what strange turn of Fortune's wheel the woman before
him had come to be housekeeper at the moat-house. It was certain that
Miss Heredith knew nothing of the black page in her past, because Miss
Heredith, in spite of her kind heart and rigid church principles, was
the last person to appoint anybody with a tainted name to a position of
trust in her household. She was too proud of the family name to do such
a thing. The fact that the housekeeper had held the post so long without
discovery was proof of the ease with which identity could be safely
concealed from everything except chance. Although her nervous demeanour
suggested that she had been walking on a razor edge of perpetual
suspense in her quiet haven, ever dreading detection, it seemed to
Caldew that she might have gone undiscovered to her grave but for a
trick of Fate in selecting Superintendent Merrington to investigate the
moat-house murder. Fate, after its cruel fashion, had left her on her
razor edge for quite a long while before toppling