. You
could visit the stables."

"And did; but I found nothing there."

"I thought not!" I could not help the exclamation. It is so seldom one
can really triumph over this man. "Not having the cue, you would not be
apt to see what gives this whole thing away. I would never have thought
of it again if we had not had this talk. Is Mr. Simsbury a neat man?"

"A neat man? Madam, what do you mean?"

"Something important, Mr. Gryce. If Mr. Simsbury is a neat man, he will
have thrown away the old rags which, I dare promise you, cumbered his
stable floor the morning after the phantom coach was seen to enter the
lane. If he is not, you may still find them there. One of them, I know,
you will not find. He pulled it off of his wheel with his whip the
afternoon he drove me down from the station. I can see the sly look he
gave me as he did it. It made no impression on me then, but now----"

"Madam, you have supplied the one link necessary to the establishment of
this theory. Allow me to felicitate you upon it. But whatever our
satisfaction may be from a professional standpoint, we cannot but feel
the unhappy nature of the responsibility incurred by these discoveries.
If this seemingly respectable family stooped to such subterfuge, going
to the length of winding rags around the wheels of their lumbering old
coach to make it noiseless, and even tying up their horse's feet for
this same purpose, they must have had a motive dark enough to warrant
your worst suspicions. And William was not the only one involved.
Simsbury, at least, had a hand in it, nor does it look as if the girls
were as innocent as we would like to consider them."

"I cannot stop to consider the girls," I declared. "I can no longer
consider the girls."

"Nor I," he gloomily assented. "Our duty requires us to sift this
matter, and it shall be sifted. We must first find if any child alighted
from the cars at the Mountain Station on that especial night, or, what
is more probable, from the little station at C., five miles farther back
in the mountains."

"And--" I urged, seeing that he had still something to say.

"We must make sure who lies buried under the floor of the room you call
the Flower Parlor. You may expect me at the Knollys house some time
to-day. I shall come quietly, but in my own proper person. You are not
to know me, and, unless you desire it, need not appear in the matter."

"I do not desire it."

"Then good-morning, Miss Butterworth. My resp