nkingly,
as that was the name he insisted upon living under. He explained his
father required this, or else would stop his remittances. I had to
humor him, although I thought it most strange. Is that all you wish to
know?"

"All now, yes. I must have time to think, and plan what is best for us
to do. I can already see my duty sufficiently clear, but not how to go
at it. The fact is, Mrs. Henley--"

"Would it not be better for you to call me Viola?" she interrupted.
"Someone might overhear, and we must continue to carry out the
deception, I suppose."

"It will be safer, if you do not object."

"I? Oh, no; I shall not care in the least. You were saying?"

"This, Viola," and her eyes suddenly flashed into mine, "the conditions
I have already discovered here--in this house--are no less strange, and
dangerous than the mission which brought us here. Everything looks
bad. You ought to know it, and you are strong enough to be told. I do
not know who tried your door last night, and later escaped down the
trellis. If I did I could determine what action to take. But one
thing I do know--there was murder committed in this house."

"Murder!" her face went white, her fingers clasping my sleeve, "Who was
killed? Coombs? That woman?"

"Neither. A man I never saw before. I heard the same shot which
frightened you; took my lamp and investigated. I found him lying dead
on the floor of the rear room. He had been shot in the back of the
head through an open window."

"Merciful God! and the body still there."

"No, but its disappearance only adds to the mystery. I dared not
create an alarm at once, as we were in a strange house, and I had no
means of knowing where to find either Coombs or the housekeeper. Nor
did I venture to leave you alone unguarded. As soon as daylight came I
went in there again to convince myself the murder was not a dream. The
man's body lay there undisturbed. I turned him over, and examined the
wound. Then I went out and found Coombs, who sleeps in one of the
negro cabins. He sneered at my discovery, but finally accompanied me
back to the house. I could not have been absent to exceed thirty
minutes, and yet, when we opened the door of that rear room, the body
had disappeared--vanished completely. Not a thing remained to tell of
any tragedy."

"It had been dragged into some other room; hidden away in some closet.
The woman did it."

"That was my thought at first. As soon as I