ents
before. I was rather hot, and I went out on the veranda for a breath of
air. I rushed out toward the sound, and Nealman and his party caught up
with me."

He testified that he had taken part in the search, and was utterly
baffled as to the solution of the mystery.

Nopp was in the music room, he said, looking for a certain record that
he wished his friends to hear. He had been in the billiard room a few
seconds before. He had heard the cry but faintly, and had not been
especially alarmed. The shouts of the other guests, he said, rather than
the scream of the dying man, had caused him to rush out and join in the
investigation. He had known Nealman a long time, was an architect by
profession, and had been one of those to partake in the hunt through the
gardens.

Last of all the white men, he called on me. I told of my relations with
Nealman, the work I had been hired to do and, my own reactions to the
fearful scream in the darkness. I had been with Marten, Van Hope and
Nealman and had sent through the calls to Ochakee.

"You saw or heard nothing beyond that which these other gentlemen have
testified?"

"Nothing at all," I answered.

"You have made no subsequent discoveries?"

Just for a moment I was silent, conjecturing what my answer should be.
Was I to tell of the cryptogram I had found beside the body, and its
theft during the night?

I couldn't see how the least good would come of it. Indeed, if last
night's intruder was in the room, listening to my testimony, he would be
very glad to know if I had discovered the theft. I had resolved to work
out the case in my own way, employing the methods of a naturalist, and
these agents of the law were not my allies.

"Nothing has come to my observation," I told him simply.

If he had pressed the matter he might have got the admission out of me;
but fortunately he turned to other subjects.

There was quite a little stir of interest throughout the circle when he
began to question Edith. None of us will forget the picture of that
golden head, graced by the sunlight slanting through the leaded panes of
the window, the flushed, lovely face, the frank eyes and the girlish
figure, lost in the big chair. She was in such contrast to the rest of
us. Except for the housekeeper, buxom and fifty, she was the only white
woman present; and she could have been the daughter of any one of the
gray men in the circle.

She had gone to her room about ten, she said, and had read