al years, and knowing Mr. Arnold well.

Gertrude had slipped out during my talk with Mrs. Watson, and I dressed
and went down-stairs. The billiard and card-rooms were locked until
the coroner and the detectives got there, and the men from the club had
gone back for more conventional clothing.

I could hear Thomas in the pantry, alternately wailing for Mr. Arnold,
as he called him, and citing the tokens that had precursed the murder.
The house seemed to choke me, and, slipping a shawl around me, I went
out on the drive. At the corner by the east wing I met Liddy. Her
skirts were draggled with dew to her knees, and her hair was still in
crimps.

"Go right in and change your clothes," I said sharply. "You're a
sight, and at your age!"

She had a golf-stick in her hand, and she said she had found it on the
lawn. There was nothing unusual about it, but it occurred to me that a
golf-stick with a metal end might have been the object that had
scratched the stairs near the card-room. I took it from her, and sent
her up for dry garments. Her daylight courage and self-importance, and
her shuddering delight in the mystery, irritated me beyond words.
After I left her I made a circuit of the building. Nothing seemed to
be disturbed: the house looked as calm and peaceful in the morning sun
as it had the day I had been coerced into taking it. There was nothing
to show that inside had been mystery and violence and sudden death.

In one of the tulip beds back of the house an early blackbird was
pecking viciously at something that glittered in the light. I picked my
way gingerly over through the dew and stooped down: almost buried in
the soft ground was a revolver! I scraped the earth off it with the
tip of my shoe, and, picking it up, slipped it into my pocket. Not
until I had got into my bedroom and double-locked the door did I
venture to take it out and examine it. One look was all I needed. It
was Halsey's revolver. I had unpacked it the day before and put it on
his shaving-stand, and there could be no mistake. His name was on a
small silver plate on the handle.

I seemed to see a network closing around my boy, innocent as I knew he
was. The revolver--I am afraid of them, but anxiety gave me courage to
look through the barrel--the revolver had still two bullets in it. I
could only breathe a prayer of thankfulness that I had found the
revolver before any sharp-eyed detective had come around.

I decided to keep