me, you do; it's necessary."
"Oh!"
"And I'll tell you why. When you come home you find Wigg and me here, don't you?"
"Yes."
"You've heard how we got in, but it's a fact that we had no business here unless we was called in. We must have been called in by somebody, and whoever it was must have had a reason for inviting us. Is that sound, Wigg?"
"As sound as a rock, Nightingale."
"Mr. Felix didn't call us in, and there's no one else in the house while you've gone for your supper-beer?" Mrs. Middlemore coughed, which caused Constable Nightingale to ask, "What's that for?"
"It ain't for me to say," replied Mrs. Middlemore. "What you want to git at is that there's only two people living regularly in the 'ouse, Mr. Felix and me. If Mr. Felix makes it worth my while to keep my own counsel, I'm going to keep it, and I don't care what happens."
"I wouldn't persuade you otherwise. Gentlemen that's so liberal with their money as him ain't to be met with every day. Very well, then. There's only you and Mr. Felix living in the house, and he don't call us in. It's you that does that. Why? You shut the street-door tight when you went out; you find it open when you come back, and at the same time you see a man with a red handkercher round his neck run out of the house. Of course you're alarmed; Wigg happens to be near, and you call him; he, thinking he may want assistance, calls me; and that's how it is we're both here at the present moment. That's pretty straight, isn't it?"
Both his hearers agreed that it was, and he proceeded:
"But we mustn't forget that we've been here some time already. I make it, by my silver watch that I won in a raffle, twenty minutes to two. Your kitchen clock, Mrs. Middlemore, is a little slow."
"Do what I will," said Mrs. Middlemore, "I can't make it go right."
"Some clocks," observed Constable Nightingale, with a touch of humor-he was on the best of terms with himself, having, in a certain sense, snuffed out Constable Wigg-"are like some men and women; they're either too slow or too fast, and try your hardest you can't alter 'em. We must be able to account for a little time between past twelve o'clock and now; there's no need to be too particular; such a night as this is 'll excuse a lot. I'll take the liberty of stopping your clock and putting the hands back to twelve, so that you won't be fixed to a half-hour or so. The clock stopped while you was getting your supper-beer, of course. Likewise I stop my watch, and put the hands back to about the same time. Now, what do I do when Wigg calls me here? I hear what you, ma'am, have to say about the street-door being open and a man running out and almost upsetting you, and I make tracks after him. I don't catch him, and then I come back here, and that brings us up to this very minute. Plain sailing, so far. You'll bear it in mind, you and Wigg, won't you?"
"I've got it," said Wigg, "at my fingers' ends."
"So 'ave I," said Mrs. Middlemore.
"But what are you going to do now?" asked Constable Wigg.
"To find the cat," replied Constable Nightingale.
"Going to take it up?" This, with a fine touch of sarcasm.
"No, Wigg," said Constable Nightingale, speaking very seriously. "I want to make sure where it got that red color from, because, not to put too fine a point on it, it's blood."
Mrs. Middlemore uttered a stifled scream, and clapped her hands on her hips.
"That," continued Constable Nightingale, in a tone of severity to his brother constable, "is what I had in my mind and you didn't have in yours. Why, if you look with only half an eye at them stains on the floor, you can't mistake 'em."
"Oh, dear, oh, dear," moaned Mrs. Middlemore, "we shall all be murdered in our beds?"
"Nothing of the sort, my dear," said Constable Nightingale; "we'll look after you. Pull yourself together, there's a good soul, and answer me one or two questions. I know that Mr. Felix comes home late sometimes."
"Very often, very often."
"And that, as well as being generous with his money, he likes his pleasures. Now, are you sure he was at home when you went out for your beer?"
"I'm certain of it."
"And that he did not go out before you come back?"
"How can I tell you that?"
"Of course. A stupid question. But, at all events, he ain't the sort of man to go out in such a storm as this?"
"Not 'im. He's too fond of his comforts."
"Does he ever ring for you in the middle of the night-at such a time as this, for instance?"
"Never."
"Has he ever been took ill in the night, and rung you up?"
"Never."
"Do you ever go up to his room without being summoned?"
"It's more than I dare. I should lose the best customer I ever had in my life. He made things as clear as can be when he first come into the 'ouse. 'Never,' he ses to me, 'under any circumstances whatever, let me see you going upstairs to my rooms unless I call you. Never let me ketch you prying about. If I do, you shall 'ear of it in a way you won't like.'"
Constable Nightingale was silent a few moments, and then he said, briskly, "Let's us go and hunt up that cat."
But although they searched the basement through they could not find it.
"Perhaps," suggested Constable Wigg, "it got out of the house when we opened the street-door just now."
"Perhaps," assented Constable Nightingale, laconically.
Then they ascended the stairs to the ground floor, Constable Nightingale examining very carefully the marks of the cat's paws on the oilcloth.
"Do you see, Mrs. Middlemore? Blood. There's no mistaking it. And I'm hanged if it doesn't go upstairs to the first floor."
"You're not going up, Mr. Nightingale?" asked Mrs. Middlemore, under her breath, laying her hand on his arm.
"If I know myself," said Constable Nightingale, patting her hand, "I am. Whatever happens, it's my duty and Wigg's to get at the bottom of this. What else did you call us in for?"
"To be sure," said Mrs. Middlemore, helplessly, "but if you have any feeling for me, speak low."
"I will, my dear. My feelings for you well you must know, but this is not the time. Look here at this stain, and this, and this. The spectre cat has been up these stairs. Puss, puss, puss, puss! Not likely that it'll answer; it's got the cunning of a fox. That's Mr. Felix's room, if my eyes don't deceive me."
"Yes, it is."
"But it don't look the same door as the one I have been through; it ain't the first time I've been here, you know. Where's the keyhole? I'll take my oath there was a keyhole when I last saw the door."
"The key 'ole's 'id. That brass plate covers it; it's a patent spring, and he fixes it some'ow from the inside; he presses something, and it slides down; then he turns a screw, and makes it tight."
"Can anyone do it but him?"
"I
