and--"

"Where's the clock?" said Mr. Holcombe, stopping in front of the
mantel with his note-book in his hand.

"The clock?"

I turned and looked. My onyx clock was gone from the mantel-shelf.

Perhaps it seems strange, but from the moment I missed that clock my
rage at Mr. Ladley increased to a fury. It was all I had had left of
my former gentility. When times were hard and I got behind with the
rent, as happened now and then, more than once I'd been tempted to
sell the clock, or to pawn it. But I had never done it. Its ticking
had kept me company on many a lonely night, and its elegance had
helped me to keep my pride and to retain the respect of my neighbors.
For in the flood district onyx clocks are not plentiful. Mrs. Bryan,
the saloon-keeper's wife, had one, and I had another. That is, I _had_
had.

I stood staring at the mark in the dust of the mantel-shelf, which Mr.
Holcombe was measuring with a pocket tape-measure.

"You are sure you didn't take it away yourself, Mrs. Pitman?" he
asked.

"Sure? Why, I could hardly lift it," I said.

He was looking carefully at the oblong of dust where the clock had
stood. "The key is gone, too," he said, busily making entries in his
note-book. "What was the maker's name?"

"Why, I don't think I ever noticed."

He turned to me angrily. "Why didn't you notice?" he snapped. "Good
God, woman, do you only use your eyes to cry with? How can you wind a
clock, time after time, and not know the maker's name? It proves my
contention: the average witness is totally unreliable."

"Not at all," I snapped, "I am ordinarily both accurate and
observing."

"Indeed!" he said, putting his hands behind him. "Then perhaps you can
tell me the color of the pencil I have been writing with."

"Certainly. Red." Most pencils are red, and I thought this was safe.

But he held his right hand out with a flourish. "I've been writing
with a fountain pen," he said in deep disgust, and turned his back on
me.

But the next moment he had run to the wash-stand and pulled it out
from the wall. Behind it, where it had fallen, lay a towel, covered
with stains, as if some one had wiped bloody hands on it. He held it
up, his face working with excitement. I could only cover my eyes.

"This looks better," he said, and began making a quick search of the
room, running from one piece of furniture to another, pulling out
bureau drawers, drawing the bed out from the wall, and crawling along
the base-boa