he must be guilty
just because she is not to be found the minute they want her."

"But this fact?" I urged.

"Well, the fact is this. You see--I would tell Mr. Gryce," he resumed,
unconscious of my anxiety, "but I have my fears of detectives, sir; they
catch you up so quick at times, and seem to think you know so much more
than you really do."

"But this fact," I again broke in.

"O yes, sir; the fact is, that that night, the one of the murder you
know, I saw Mr. Clavering, Robbins, or whatever his name is, enter the
house, but neither I nor any one else saw him go out of it; nor do I
know that he _did."_

"What do you mean?"

"Well, sir, what I mean is this. When I came down from Miss Eleanore and
told Mr. Robbins, as he called himself at that time, that my mistress
was ill and unable to see him (the word she gave me, sir, to deliver)
Mr. Robbins, instead of bowing and leaving the house like a gentleman,
stepped into the reception room and sat down. He may have felt sick, he
looked pale enough; at any rate, he asked me for a glass of water.
Not knowing any reason then for suspicionat-ing any one's actions, I
immediately went down to the kitchen for it, leaving him there in the
reception room alone. But before I could get it, I heard the front door
close. 'What's that?' said Molly, who was helping me, sir. 'I don't
know,' said I, 'unless it's the gentleman has got tired of waiting and
gone.' 'If he's gone, he won't want the water,' she said. So down I set
the pitcher, and up-stairs I come; and sure enough he was gone, or so
I thought then. But who knows, sir, if he was not in that room or the
drawing-room, which was dark that night, all the time I was a-shutting
up of the house?"

I made no reply to this; I was more startled than I cared to reveal.

"You see, sir, I wouldn't speak of such a thing about any person that
comes to see the young ladies; but we all know some one who was in the
house that night murdered my master, and as it was not Hannah----"

"You say that Miss Eleanore refused to see him," I interrupted, in the
hope that the simple suggestion would be enough to elicitate further
details of his interview with Eleanore.

"Yes, sir. When she first looked at the card, she showed a little
hesitation; but in a moment she grew very flushed in the face, and bade
me say what I told you. I should never have thought of it again if I had
not seen him come blazoning and bold into the house this evening, with