u will have to ask the coroner. My orders were strict to bring
the results of my interview immediately to him."

"Does that include Durbin?"

"Does it include you?"

"I am afraid not."

"You are right; but why shouldn't it include you?"

"What do you mean, Jinny?"

"Why do you keep your own counsel so long? You have ideas about
this crime, I know. Why not mention them?"

"Jinny!"

"A word to the wise is sufficient;" she laughed and turned her
pretty face toward the coroner's once. But she was a woman and
could not help glancing back, and, meeting my dubious look, she
broke into an arch smile and naively added this remark: "Loretta
is a busybody ashamed of her own curiosity. So much there can be
no harm in telling you. When one's knowledge has been gained by
lingering behind doors and peeping through cracks, one is not so
ready to say what one has seen and heard. Loretta is in that box,
and being more than a little scared of the police, was glad to let
her anxiety and her fears overflow into a sympathizing ear. Won't
she be surprised when she is called up some fine day by the coroner!
I wonder if she will blame me for it?"

"She will never think of doing so," I basely assured my little
friend, with an appreciative glance at her sparkling eye and dimpled
cheek.

The arch little creature started to move off again. As she did so,
she cried: "Be good, and don't let Durbin cut in on you;" but stopped
for the second time when half across the street, and when, obedient
to her look, I hastily rejoined her, she whispered demurely: "Oh, I
forgot to tell you something that I heard this morning, and which
nobody but yourself has any right to know. I was following your
commands and buying groceries at Simpkins', when just as I was coming
out with my arms full, I heard old Mr. Simpkins mention Mr. Jeffrey's
name and with such interest that I naturally wanted to hear what he
had to say. Having no real excuse for staying, I poked my finger
into a bag of sugar I was carrying, till the sugar ran out and I had
to wait till it was put up again. This did not take long, but it
took long enough for me to hear the old grocer say that he knew Mr.
Jeffrey, and that that gentleman had come into his shop only a day
or two before his wife's death, to buy--candles!"

The archness with which this was said, together with the fact itself,
made me her slave forever. As her small figure faded from sight
down the avenue, I deci