with the Ladleys. I am the old she-devil. I notice you didn't tell
your friend, Mr. Holcombe, about having been here on Sunday."

He was quick to recover. "I'll tell you all about it, Mrs. Pitman,"
he said smilingly. "You see, all my life, I have wished for an onyx
clock. It has been my ambition, my _Great Desire_. Leaving the house
that Sunday morning, and hearing the ticking of the clock up-stairs, I
recognized that it was an _onyx_ clock, clambered from my boat through
an upper window, and so reached it. The clock showed fight, but after
stunning it with a chair--"

"Exactly!" I said. "Then the thing Mrs. Ladley said she would not do
was probably to wind the clock?"

He dropped his bantering manner at once. "Mrs. Pitman," he said, "I
don't know what you heard or did not hear. But I want you to give me
a little time before you tell anybody that I was here that Sunday
morning. And, in return, I'll find your clock."

I hesitated, but however put out he was, he didn't look like a
criminal. Besides, he was a friend of my niece's, and blood is thicker
even than flood-water.

"There was nothing wrong about my being here," he went on, "but--I
don't want it known. Don't spoil a good story, Mrs. Pitman."

I did not quite understand that, although those who followed the trial
carefully may do so. Poor Mr. Howell! I am sure he believed that it
was only a good story. He got the description of my onyx clock and
wrote it down, and I gave him the manuscript for Mr. Ladley. That was