But are you sure, Miss b.u.t.terworth, that you really have obtained a clue to the many strange and fearful disappearances which have given to this lane its name?"

"Quite sure," I returned, nettled. "Why do you doubt it? Because I have kept so quiet and not sounded one note of alarm from my whistle?"

"No," said he. "Knowing your self-restraint so well, I cannot say that that is my reason."

"What is it, then?" I urged.

"Well," said he, "my real reason for doubting if you have been quite as successful as you think, is that we ourselves have come upon a clue about which there can be no question. Can you say the same of yours?"

You will expect my answer to have been a decided "Yes," uttered with all the positiveness of which you know me capable. But for some reason, perhaps because of the strange influence this man's personality exercises upon all--yes, all--who do not absolutely steel themselves against him, I faltered just long enough for him to cry:

"I thought not. The clue is outside the Knollys house, not in it, Miss b.u.t.terworth, for which, of course, you are not to be blamed or your services scorned. I have no doubt they have been invaluable in unearthing _a_ secret, if not _the_ secret."

"Thank you," was my quiet retort. I thought his presumption beyond all bounds, and would at that moment have felt justified in snapping my fingers at the clue he boasted of, had it not been for one thing. What that thing is I am not ready yet to state.

"You and I have come to issue over such matters before," said he, "and therefore need not take too much account of the feelings it is likely to engender. I will merely state that my clue points to Mother Jane, and ask if you have found in the visit she paid at the house last night anything which would go to strengthen the suspicion against her."

"Perhaps," said I, in a state of disdain that was more or less unpardonable, considering that my own suspicions previous to my discovery of the real tragedy enacted under my eyes at the Knollys mansion had played more or less about this old crone.

"Only perhaps?" He smiled, with a playful forbearance for which I should have been truly grateful to him.

"She was there for no good purpose," said I, "and yet if you had not characterized her as the person most responsible for the crimes we are here to investigate, I should have said from all that I then saw of her conduct that she acted as a supernumerary rather than princ.i.p.al, and that it is to me you should look for the correct clue to the criminal, notwithstanding your confidence in your own theories and my momentary hesitation to a.s.sert that there was no possible defect in mine."

"Miss b.u.t.terworth,"--I thought he looked a trifle shaken,--"what did Mother Jane do in that closely shuttered house last night?"

Mother Jane? Well! Did he think I was going to introduce my tragic story by telling what Mother Jane did? I must have looked irritated, and indeed I think I had cause.

"Mother Jane ate her supper," I snapped out angrily. "Miss Knollys gave it to her. Then she helped a little with a piece of work they had on hand. It will not interest you to know what. It has nothing to do with your clue, I warrant."

He did not get angry. He has an admirable temper, has Mr. Gryce, but he did stop a minute to consider.

"Miss b.u.t.terworth," he said at last, "most detectives would have held their peace and let you go on with what you have to tell without a hint that it was either unwelcome or unnecessary, but I have consideration for persons' feelings and for persons' secrets so long as they do not come in collision with the law, and my opinion is, or was when I entered this room, that such discoveries as you have made at your old friend's house" (Why need he emphasize friend--did he think I forgot for a moment that Althea was my friend?) "were connected rather with some family difficulty than with the dreadful affair we are considering. That is why I hastened to tell you that we had found a clue to the disappearances in Mother Jane's cottage. I wished to save the Misses Knollys."

If he had thought to mollify me by this a.s.sertion, he did not succeed.

He saw it and made haste to say:

"Not that I doubt your consideration for them, only the justness of your conclusions."

"You have doubted those before and with more reason," I replied, "yet they were not altogether false."

"That I am willing to acknowledge, so willing that if you still think after I have told my story that yours is _apropos_, then I will listen to it only too eagerly. My object is to find the real criminal in this matter. I say at the present moment it is Mother Jane."

"G.o.d grant you are right," I said, influenced in spite of myself by the calm a.s.surance of his manner. "If she was at the house night before last between eleven and twelve, then perhaps she is all you think her. But I see no reason to believe it--not yet, Mr. Gryce. Supposing you give me one. It would be better than all this controversy. One small reason, Mr.

Gryce, as good as"--I did not say what, but the fillip it gave to his intention stood me in good stead, for he launched immediately into the matter with no further play upon my curiosity, which was now, as you can believe, thoroughly aroused, though I could not believe that anything he had to bring up against Mother Jane could for a moment stand against the death and the burial I had witnessed in Miss Knollys' house during the two previous nights.

XXIV

THE ENIGMA OF NUMBERS

"When in our first conversation on this topic I told you that Mother Jane was not to be considered in this matter, I meant she was not to be considered by you. She was a subject to be handled by the police, and we have handled her. Yesterday afternoon I made a search of her cabin."

Here Mr. Gryce paused and eyed me quizzically. He sometimes does eye me, which same I cannot regard as a compliment, considering how fond he is of concentrating all his wisdom upon small and insignificant objects.

"I wonder," said he, "what you would have done in such a search as that.

It was no common one, I a.s.sure you. There are not many hiding-places between Mother Jane's four walls."

I felt myself begin to tremble, with eagerness, of course.

"I wish I had been given the opportunity," said I--"that is, if anything was to be found there."

He seemed to be in a sympathetic mood toward me, or perhaps--and this is the likelier supposition--he had a minute of leisure and thought he could afford to give himself a little quiet amus.e.m.e.nt. However that was, he answered me by saying:

"The opportunity is not lost. You have been in her cabin and have noted, I have no doubt, its extreme simplicity. Yet it contains, or rather did contain up till last night, distinct evidences of more than one of the crimes which have been perpetrated in this lane."

"Good! And you want me to guess where you found them? Well, it's not fair."

"Ah, and why not?"

"Because you probably did not find them on your first attempt. You had time to look about. I am asked to guess at once and without second trial what I warrant it took you several trials to determine."

He could not help but laugh. "And why do you think it took me several trials?"

"Because there is more than one thing in that room made up of parts."

"Parts?" He attempted to look puzzled, but I would not have it.

"You know what I mean," I declared; "seventy parts, twenty-eight, or whatever the numbers are she so constantly mutters."

His admiration was unqualified and sincere.

"Miss b.u.t.terworth," said he, "you are a woman after my own heart. How came you to think that her mutterings had anything to do with a hiding-place?"

"Because it did not have anything to do with the amount of money I gave her. When I handed her twenty-five cents, she cried, 'Seventy, twenty-eight, and now ten!' Ten what? Not ten cents or ten dollars, but ten----"

"Why do you stop?"

"I do not want to risk my reputation on a guess. There is a quilt on the bed made up of innumerable pieces. There is a floor of neatly laid brick----"

"And there is a Bible on the stand whose leaves number many over seventy."

"Ah, it was in the Bible you found----"

His smile put mine quite to shame.

"I must acknowledge," he cried, "that I looked in the Bible, but I found nothing there beyond what we all seek when we open its sacred covers.

Shall I tell my story?"