marks and comparing them with those upstairs, I did not enjoy the full
triumph I had promised myself. For the two impressions utterly failed
to coincide, thus proving that whoever the person was who had been in
this house with Mrs. Jeffrey on the evening she died, it was not her
uncle David.




VIII

SLYER WOES


Let me repeat. The person who had left the marks of his presence
in the upper chamber of the Moore house was not the man popularly
known as Uncle David. Who, then, had it been? But one name
suggested itself to me, - Mr. Jeffrey.

It was not so easy for me to reach this man as it had been for me
to reach his singular and unimaginative uncle. In the first place,
his door had been closed to every one since his wife's death.
Neither friends nor strangers could gain admittance there unless
they came vested with authority from the coroner. And this, even
if I could manage to obtain it, would not answer in my case. What
I had to say and do would better follow a chance encounter. But
no chance encounter with this gentleman seemed likely to fall to
my lot, and finally I swallowed my pride and asked another favor
of the lieutenant. Would he see that I was given an opportunity
for carrying some message, or of doing some errand which would lead