Then one day another letter for her in a blue envelope arrived. This time I saved it for him. He took it without comment, but he looked as though I had handed him a bomb.

We saw a good bit of Mr. Elliott during that convalescence of Maud’s. He was as distinguished as ever, but I began to feel they were at odds over something or other. I had an idea that he wanted her to marry him, and she was refusing. He looked worried and unhappy when he thought he was unobserved. And I remember that he asked me once if I had any idea what had caused her collapse.

“Has she spoken about it?” he asked. “After all, a strong woman like that—”

“Not to me, Mr. Elliott.”

He was disturbed about the attack on Evans too. He had me go over every detail as I knew it, the blood on Roger, how I had found Evans himself, the missing keys and gun.

“I suppose Evans kept pretty regular hours?” he asked.

“I think so. He made rounds of the house every hour, punching a clock. Then two or three times at night he would take a look around the grounds. I don’t believe he had any particular time for that.”

“Did he always go to the playhouse?”

“I don’t know, Mr. Elliott.”

The whole thing evidently puzzled him. As Tony once said, outside of Maud’s jewels the house could hardly appeal to a burglar unless he brought a moving van along. But there were the jewels, and some attempt might be made to get them. I gathered that Mr. Elliott had tried to get Maud to go away, and that she had refused.

“She is a very self-willed woman,” he said, and sighed.

I was alone a good deal at that time. Now and then Margery Stoddard wandered over for a cup of tea. She had seen no more of the intruder at the Farm, but the attack on Evans worried her.

“An old man!” she said. “It was so brutal, Pat. After all, he could not have put up a fight. To knock him out and then half drown him…!”

I thought she looked badly, but then I dare say we all did at that time.

I filled in the time as best I could. One day I made a crude chart of the Cloisters, and as the house played its own part in the tragedies to come, it might be well to describe it here. Aside from the open court in the center the plan was simple enough. The entrance hall was two stories high, with a painted ceiling and a balcony across the back. Long windows, above and below, opened onto the court, and from the hall two long corridors, one called the east and the other the west hall, opened from it. The west hall was the one toward the playhouse, and over the end of it were Maud’s rooms with their view of the golf course and the river.