was shaped like a revolver.

I stopped in Willie's room on my way to my own, and held it out to him.

"Where did you get that?" I asked.

"Good heavens!" he said, raising himself on his elbow. "It belongs
to the doctor. He gave it to me to examine the fan belt. I must have
dropped it into my pocket."

And still I was nowhere. Suppose I had touched this flashlight at the
foot of the stairs and mistaken it for a revolver. Suppose that the
doctor, making his way toward the village and finding himself pursued,
had faced about and pretended to be leaving it? Grant, in a word, that
Doctor Lingard himself had been our night visitor--what then? Why had he
done it? What of the telephone-call, urging me to search the road? Did
some one realize what was happening, and take this method of warning us
and sending us after the fugitive?

I knew the Thomas Jenkins farm on the Elmsburg road. I had, indeed,
bought vegetables and eggs from Mr. Jenkins himself. That morning, as
early as I dared, I called the Jenkins farm. Mr. Jenkins himself would
bring me three dozen eggs that day. They were a little torn up out
there, as Mrs. Jenkins had borne a small daughter at seven A.M.

When I told Willie, he was evidently relieved. "I'm glad of it," he said
heartily. "The doctor's a fine old chap, and I'd hate to think he was
mixed up in any shady business."

He was insistent, that day, that I give up the house. He said it was not
safe, and I was inclined to agree with him. But although I did not
tell him of it, I had even more strongly than ever the impression that
something must be done to help Miss Emily, and that I was the one who
must do it.

Yet, in the broad light of day, with the sunshine pouring into the
rooms, I was compelled to confess that Willie's theory was more than
upheld by the facts. First of all was the character of Miss Emily as I
read it, sternly conscientious, proud, and yet gentle. Second, there was
the connection of the Bullard girl with the case. And third, there
was the invader of the night before, an unknown quantity where so much
seemed known, where a situation involving Miss Emily alone seemed to
call for no one else.

Willie put the matter flatly to me as he stood in the hall, drawing on
his driving gloves.

"Do you want to follow it up?" he asked. "Isn't it better to let it go?
After all, you have only rented the house. You haven't taken over its
history, or any responsibility but the rent."

"I think M