felt it an excuse for stealing another glance in her direction. She
was not looking his way but at a door in the partition wall on her
right; and the look was one very akin to anxious fear. The next
moment he understood it. The door burst open, and a young girl
bounded into the room, with the merry cry:

"All ready, mother. I'm glad we are going to the Clarendon. I
hate hotels where people die almost before your eyes."

What the mother said at this outburst is immaterial. What the
detective did is not. Keeping on his way, he reached the door, but
not to open it wider; rather to close it softly but with unmistakable
decision. The cloak which enveloped the girl was red, and full
enough to be called voluminous.

"Who is this?" demanded the girl, her indignant glances flashing
from one to the other.

"I don't know," faltered the mother in very evident distress. "He
says he has a right to ask us questions and he has been asking
questions about--about--"

"Not about me," laughed the girl, with a toss of her head Mr. Gryce
would have corrected in one of his grandchildren. "He can have
nothing to say about me." And she began to move about the room
in an aimless, half-insolent way.

Mr. Gryce stared hard at the few remaining belongings of the two
women, lying in a heap on the table, and half musingly, half
deprecatingly, remarked: