tsiders who have paid our money for
the privilege of staying in this spook-factory, are living on the very
top of things. We're on the lid, so to speak. Now and then we get a
sight of the things inside, but we are not a part of them."

"Do you suppose," Gertrude asked doubtfully, "that she really meant
that blanket for Thomas?"

"Thomas was standing beside that magnolia tree," Halsey replied, "when
I ran after Mrs. Watson. It's down to this, Aunt Ray. Rosie's basket
and Mrs. Watson's blanket can only mean one thing: there is somebody
hiding or being hidden in the lodge. It wouldn't surprise me if we
hold the key to the whole situation now. Anyhow, I'm going to the
lodge to investigate."

Gertrude wanted to go, too, but she looked so shaken that I insisted
she should not. I sent for Liddy to help her to bed, and then Halsey
and I started for the lodge. The grass was heavy with dew, and,
man-like, Halsey chose the shortest way across the lawn. Half-way,
however, he stopped.

"We'd better go by the drive," he said. "This isn't a lawn; it's a
field. Where's the gardener these days?"

"There isn't any," I said meekly. "We have been thankful enough, so
far, to have our meals prepared and served and the beds aired. The
gardener who belongs here is working at the club."

"Remind me to-morrow to send out a man from town," he said. "I know
the very fellow."

I record this scrap of conversation, just as I have tried to put down
anything and everything that had a bearing on what followed, because
the gardener Halsey sent the next day played an important part in the
events of the next few weeks--events that culminated, as you know, by
stirring the country profoundly. At that time, however, I was busy
trying to keep my skirts dry, and paid little or no attention to what
seemed then a most trivial remark.

Along the drive I showed Halsey where I had found Rosie's basket with
the bits of broken china piled inside. He was rather skeptical.

"Warner probably," he said when I had finished. "Began it as a joke on
Rosie, and ended by picking up the broken china out of the road,
knowing it would play hob with the tires of the car." Which shows how
near one can come to the truth, and yet miss it altogether.

At the lodge everything was quiet. There was a light in the
sitting-room down-stairs, and a faint gleam, as if from a shaded lamp,
in one of the upper rooms. Halsey stopped and examined the lodge with
calcula