t under the table. At eleven
o'clock the maidservants went up to their rooms, and at quarter-past
there wasn't a light burning in the house. I sat there in the
dining-room waiting, and just as the clock struck half-past eleven I
heard a noise out on the stairs, and in less than half a minute a
sulphur match was struck almost over my head under the table, and
there stood the cook, her face livid as that of a dead person, and
in her hand she held a candle, which she lit with the match. From
where I was I could see everything she did, which was not much. She
simply gathered up all the table fixings she could, and started
down-stairs into the kitchen with 'em. Then I went up to Mr.
Perkins's room and called him. He put on his clothes and got out
his revolver, when we stole down-stairs together, leaving Mrs.
Perkins up-stairs, with her boy's nurse and the waitress to keep her
company.

"In a second we were in the laundry, which was as dark as the ace of
spades, except where the light from four gas-jets in the kitchen
streamed in through the half-open door. Mr. Perkins was for
pouncing in on the cook at once, but I was after the rest of the
gang as much as I was for the cook, and I persuaded him to wait;
and, by thunder, we were paid for waiting. It was the queerest case
I ever had.

"That woman--looking for all the world like a creature from some
other part of the universe than this earth, her eyes burning like
two huge coals, her checks as yellow and clear as so much wax, and
her lips blue-white, with a great flaming red tongue sort of laid
between them--worked like a slave cleaning the floor, polishing the
range, and scrubbing the table. Then she dusted all the chairs,
and, producing the missing table-cloth, she laid it snow-white upon
the table. In two minutes more the lost china was brought to light
out of the flour-barrel, polished off, and set upon the table--
enough for twenty people. The dining-room things I had seen her
take she arranged as tastefully as any one could want, and then the
finest lay-out in the way of salads, cakes, fruits, and other good
things I ever saw was brought in from the cellar. To do all this
took a marvellously short time. It was five minutes of midnight
went she got through, and then she devoted three minutes to looking
after herself. She whisked out a small hand-glass and touched up
her hair a bit. Then she washed her hands and pinned some roses on
her dress, smiled a sm