this?" said Suzanne, coming to a halt, her glance shifting from her mother to the group of solemn servants. She looked very pretty, her face flushed, the blue tint of her linen dress harmonizing graciously with her pink cheeks and corn-colored hair. 

 Mrs. Janney explained. As she did so old Sam, his face as gray as his beard, watched his stepdaughter with a furtive eye. Suzanne appeared amazed, quite horror-stricken. She too sank into a chair, and listened, open-mouthed, her feet thrust out before her, the high heels planted on the rug. 

 "Why, what an awful thing!" was her final comment. Then as if seized by a sudden thought she turned on Dixon. 

 "Were all the windows and doors locked last night?" 

 "All on the lower floor, Mrs. Price. Me and Isaac went round them before we started for the village, and there's not a night—" 

 Suzanne cut him off brusquely: 

 "Then how could any one get in to do it?" 

 There was a curious, surging movement among the servants, a mutter of protest. Mr. Janney intervened: 

 "You'd better let matters alone, Suzanne. Detectives are coming and they'll inquire into all that sort of thing." 

 "I suppose I can ask a question if I like," she said pertly, then suddenly; looking about the hall, "Where's Miss Maitland?" 

 "In town," said her mother. 

 "Oh—she went in, did she? I thought her day off was Thursday." 

 "She asked for to-day—what does it matter?" Mrs. Janney was irritated by these irrelevancies and turned to the servants: "Now I've instructed you and for your own sakes obey what I've said. Not a man or woman leaves the house till after the police have made their search. That applies to the garage men and the gardeners. Dixon, you can tell them—" she stopped, the crunch of motor wheels on the gravel had caught her ear. "There's some one coming. I'm not at home, Dixon." 

 The servants huddled out to their own domain and Dixon, with a resumption of his best hall-door manner, went to ward off the visitor. But it was only Miss Maitland returning 

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