"A black and white dress! Did it have a red collar?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Then I remember it. She wore a small black hat with a red quill with
that dress. You might look for the hat."

She followed me back to the room and stood in the doorway while I
searched. The hat was gone, too.

"Perhaps, after all, he's telling the truth," she said thoughtfully.
"Her fur coat isn't in the closet, is it?"

_It_ was gone. It is strange that, all day, I had never thought of
looking over her clothes and seeing what was missing. I hadn't known
all she had, of course, but I had seen her all winter in her fur
coat and admired it. It was a striped fur, brown and gray, and very
unusual. But with the coat missing, and a dress and hat gone, it began
to look as if I had been making a fool of myself, and stirring up a
tempest in a teacup. Miss Hope was as puzzled as I was.

"Anyhow, if he didn't kill her," she said, "it isn't because he did
not want to. Only last week she had hysterics in my dressing-room,
and said he had threatened to poison her. It was all Mr. Bronson, the
business manager, and I could do to quiet her."

She looked at her watch, and exclaimed that she was late, and would
have to hurry. I saw her down to her boat. The river had been falling
rapidly for the last hour or two, and I heard the boat scrape as it