She refused the elevator this time and went slowly up the stairs, Bill on one side, Tony on the other. Halfway up she tried to shake them off. “I can manage all right,” she said impatiently. “What I want is a cold compress on my head and to be let alone.”

She got them both. She could be stubborn enough when she wanted to, and it was less than fifteen minutes before Bill Sterling, looking ruffled, came down the stairs. Tony was with him, and the three of us stood there, not knowing what to do next. It was Bill who suggested that we call Gus.

He came in, immaculate as always in his pale-fawn uniform with its breeches and shining puttees. There were a half dozen men in the garage, but Gus was Maud’s own chauffeur. He had driven her for years, and now he was visibly shaken.

His story, in detail, was puzzling. According to him, Maud and Margery had done some shopping together. They had seemed cheerful, even gay. At five o’clock he had left Margery at Julian’s office, and at Maud’s order had started for home.

He had driven perhaps a half dozen blocks when she suddenly called to him. The window behind him was open, so she had not used the telephone. He thought now that her voice had been strange.

“What do you mean, strange?” Tony asked.

“Not like her. Kind of strangled.”

“Good God, why didn’t you look at her? What did she say?”

“She told me to drive to Mr. Elliott’s office,” said Gus doggedly. “I did so. She was not sick then, but she looked sort of pale.”

The rest of the story was not helpful. At the building she got out, but seeing the five o’clock crowd coming out she had glanced at her watch, stood uncertainly on the pavement for a minute or so and then got back in the car and told Gus to take her home.

That was all, until halfway back he had looked in the car mirror and saw her collapsed on the back seat. He had stopped the car and asked if she was sick, but she had waved him to go on.

“You don’t know why she decided not to see Mr. Elliott?” Tony asked.

“No, sir. Except that it was getting late. She may have thought he would be gone.”

So there we were. We accepted the heat hypothesis because there was nothing else to do, but I don’t believe either Bill or Tony believed it. Something had happened to Maud that day in town, something she did not intend to talk about. It was the beginning of our mystery.

Bill Sterling sent up a nurse that night and another the next morning, it being the unhappy fate of the very rich seldom to be left alone and in peace. There was a procession of icebags, thin soups, and starched uniforms through the house. And for three days Maud lay in that Empire bed of hers, with the peach taffeta curtains hanging from a gilt crown above it; lay very still, accepting what was done for her without comment, sleeping now and then under the barbiturates Bill ordered, slowly improving, and quietly and alone fighting the battle of her life.