"

"What happened after that?" asked Polke.

"Naught!--but that Mr. Joseph went away, and she came back in here for a
minute or two and then went upstairs. And next thing she came down
dressed up and went out. She said nothing to us," replied the woman.

"You saw her go out?" said Polke.

Both women pointed to the passage which communicated with the hall.

"When this door's open--as it was," said one, "you can see right
through. Yes--we saw her go through the hall door. Of course we thought
she'd just slipped out into the town for something."

Polke hesitated--and meditated. What use was it, at that juncture, to
ask for more particular details of this evident flight? Mrs. Carswell
was probably well away from Ecclesborough by that time. He turned back
to the hall--and then looked at the women again.

"I suppose neither of you ever saw or heard aught of Mr. Horbury on
Saturday night--after he'd gone out?" he inquired.

The two women glanced at each other in silence.

"Did you?" repeated Polke. "Come, now!"

"Well, Mr. Polke," said the elder woman, "we didn't. But, of course, we
know what's going on--couldn't very well not know, now could we, Mr.
Polke? And we can tell you something that may have to do with things."

"Out with it, then!" commanded Polke. "Keep nothing back."

"Well," said the woman, "there was somebody stirring about this house in
the middle of Saturday night--between, say, one and two o'clock in the
morning--Sunday morning, of course. Both me and Jane here heard
'em--quite plain. And we thought naught of it, then--leastways, what we
did think was that it was Mr. Horbury. He often came in very late. But
when we found out next morning that he'd never come home--why, then, we
did think it was queer that we'd heard noises."

"Did you mention that to Mrs. Carswell?" asked Polke.

"Of course!--but she said she'd heard nothing, and it must have been
rats," replied the elder woman.

"But I've been here three years and I've never seen a rat in the place."

"Nor me!" agreed the housemaid. "And it wasn't rats. I heard a door
shut--twice. Plain as I'm speaking to you, Mr. Polke."

Polke reflected a minute and then turned away.

"All right, my lasses!" he said. "Well, keep all this to yourselves.
Here--I'll tell you what you can do. Send Miss Fosdyke a nice cup of tea
into the study--send us all one!--we can't leave what we're doing just
yet. And a mouthful of bread and butter with it. Come along,