The Lady Sleuths MEGAPACK TM(342)

                “Why, you can,” replied Isabella.



                             “There is no one in them now,” added Caroline, “Franklin went out just before we left.”

                At which I blandly rose, and following their leadership, soon found myself once again in the Van Burnam mansion.

                My first glance upon re-entering the parlors was naturally directed towards the spot where the tragedy had taken place. The cabinet had been replaced and the shelves set back upon it; but the latter were empty, and neither on them nor on the adjacent mantel-piece did I see the clock. This set me thinking, and I made up my mind to have another look at that clock. By dint of judicious questions I found that it had been carried into the third room, where we soon found it lying on a shelf of the same closet where the hat had been discovered by Mr. Gryce. Franklin had put it there, fearing that the sight of it might affect Howard, and from the fact that the hands stood as I had left them, I gathered that neither he nor any of the family had discovered that it was in running condition.

                Assured of this, I astonished them by requesting to have it taken down and set up on the table, which they had no sooner done than it started to tick just as it had done under my hand a few nights before.

                The girls, greatly startled, surveyed each other wonderingly.

                “Why, it’s going!” cried Caroline.

                “Who could have wound it!” marvelled Isabella.

                “Hark!” I cried. The clock had begun to strike.

                It gave forth five clear notes.

                “Well, it’s a mystery!” Isabella exclaimed. Then seeing no astonishment in my face, she added: “Did you know about this, Miss Butterworth?”

                “My dear girls,” I hastened to say, with all the impressiveness characteristic of me in my more serious moments. “I do not expect you to ask me for any information I do not volunteer. This is hard, I know; but some day I will be perfectly frank with you. Are you willing to accept my aid on these terms?”

                “O yes,” they gasped, but they looked not a little disappointed.

                “And now,” said I, “leave the clock where it is, and when your brother comes home, show it to him, and say that having the curiosity to examine it you were surprised to find it going, and that you had left it there for him to see. He will be surprised also, and as a consequence will question first you and then the police to find out who wound it. If they acknowledge having done it, you must notify me at once, for that’s what I want to know. Do you understand, Caroline? And, Isabella, do you feel that you can go through all this without dropping a word concerning me and my interest in this matter?”



                             Of course they answered yes, and of course it was with so much effusiveness that I was obliged to remind them that they must keep a check on their enthusiasm, and also to suggest that they should not come to my house or send me any notes, but simply a blank card, signifying: “No one knows who wound the clock.”

                “How delightfully mysterious!” cried Isabella. And with this girlish exclamation our talk in regard to the clock closed.

                The next object that attracted our attention was a paper-covered novel I discovered on a side-table in the same room.

                “Whose is this?” I asked.

                “Not mine.”