walking with most women, whose short and halting steps make accompanying them but an irritation. I did not say anything as we walked along, except to comment upon the change of weather and the beauty of the day, for I felt sure that she would prefer to be left to her own thoughts after the trying ordeal through which she had just passed. She was silent all the way down to the entrance to the grounds, and seemed to feel oppressed by the house and its proximity, but as soon as we set out along the main road toward Pinhoe over which Ashton and I had traveled the evening before, she seemed to brighten up, and, turning to me, said, with surprising suddenness: "Do you believe, Mr. Morgan, that I had any part in this terrible affair? The questions the detective asked me indicated that he had."
"Certainly not," I said. "And, if you will permit me to say so, Miss Temple, I think you would have been wiser had you been entirely frank with him."
"What do you mean?" she asked, indignantly.
I felt disappointed, somehow, at her manner.
"Miss Temple," I said, gently, "you at first refused to admit that you had sought an interview with Mr. Ashton at midnight. I fully understood your reasons for your refusal. It was an unconventional thing to do, and you feared the misjudgment of persons at large, although to me it appeared, in the light of my knowledge of the case, a most natural action. Mr. Ashton still retained the jewel, and, if he gave it up after your warning, he could not have complained of the consequences. But I am sorry, Miss Temple, that you were not as frank about your leaving the house, as he believes you did, early this morning."
"Why does he believe that?" she asked, spiritedly.
"Because, in the first place, he found footprints—the footprints of a woman's shoe, in the gravel walk, from the west corner of the porch to the main entrance. They lead only one way. After questioning you, he searched your room, and found the skirt and shoes which you wore, both wet and covered with mud. The rain did not stop until three or four this morning. The footprints were made after the rain, or they would have been washed away and obliterated by it. For these reasons, he fully believes you were out of the house close to daybreak, which was the time of the murder."
"The brute," said Miss Temple, indignantly, "to enter my rooms!"
"It is after all only his duty, Miss Temple," I replied.
"Well, perhaps you are right. But suppose I did go outside at that time—suppose I had decided to run away from Mr. Ashton, and my father, and their wretched conspiracy against my happiness, what guilt is there in that? I came back, did I not?"
"Why," I inquired, "did you come back?"
She glanced quickly at me, with a look of fear.
"I—I—that I refuse to explain to anyone. After all, Mr. Morgan, I certainly am not obliged to tell the police my very thoughts."
Her persistency in evading any explanation of her actions of the morning surprised and annoyed me. "You will remember, Miss Temple, that I said the footprints lead in one direction only, and that was toward the house. Mr. McQuade does not believe that you left the house in the same way that you returned to it."
"What on earth does he believe then?" she inquired with a slight laugh, which was the first sign of brightness I had seen in her since she left me with a smile the night before. I could not help admiring her beautiful mouth and her white, even teeth as she turned inquiringly to me. Yet my answer was such as to drive that smile from her face for a long time to come.
"He believes this, Miss Temple, or at least he thinks of it as a possibility: Whoever committed the murder reached the porch roof by means of the window at the end of the upper hall, and, after entering and leaving Mr. Ashton's room, descended in some way from the porch to the pathway, and re-entered the house by the main entrance. Your footsteps are the only ones so far that fit in with this theory."
"It is absurd!" said my companion, with a look of terror. "How could the window have been rebolted? Why should the murderer not have re-entered the house in the same way he left it? How does he know that there was anyone upon the roof at all?"
"In answer to the first objection, he claims that someone interested in the murderer's welfare might have rebolted the window upon entering the room. That would of course mean either your father or myself. To the second, that whoever committed the crime feared to enter the hall by the window after the house had been aroused. To the third, there is positive evidence of the presence of someone having been upon the roof, at Mr. Ashton's window."
"What evidence?" She seemed greatly alarmed; her clenched hands and rapid breathing indicated some intense inward emotion.
"The faint print of a hand—in blood, upon the window sill. With these things to face, Miss Temple, you will, I'm sure, see the advisability of explaining fully your departure from the house, and your return, in order that the investigations of the police may be turned in other directions, where the guilt lies, instead of in yours, where, I am sure, it does not." I fully expected, after telling her this, that she would insist upon returning to the house at once and clearing herself fully, but what was my amazement as I observed her pallor, her agitation, the nervous clenching of her hands, increase momentarily as I laid the Sergeant's theory before her! She seemed suddenly stricken with terror. "I can say nothing, nothing whatever," she answered, pathetically, her face a picture of anguish.
I felt alarmed, and indeed greatly disappointed at her manner. Limiting the crime to three persons, one of whom must have been upon the porch roof a little before daybreak, I saw at once that suspicion must inevitably fall upon either Miss Temple or her father. In the first instance—McQuade's theory that Miss Temple herself committed the gruesome deed seemed borne out by all the circumstances, but, if not, there could be but one plausible explanation of her unwillingness to speak: she must have seen the murderer upon the roof, and for that reason rushed back into the house. In this event, however, she would certainly have no desire to shield anyone but her father—and he, in turn might have re-entered the hallway through the window before I had thrown on my clothes and left my room after hearing the cry. He, also, to cover up his crime, had he indeed committed it, might have rebolted the window from within while I was examining the body of the murdered man, as McQuade had suggested. I remembered now that Major Temple had excluded everyone from the room but ourselves, and shut the door as soon as the murder was discovered. To suppose that Miss Temple was the guilty person was to me out of the question. Had she committed the crime, her father would necessarily have been an accomplice, otherwise he would not have bolted the window, and this seemed unbelievable to me. Yet there was the print of the bloody hand, upon the window sill—small, delicately formed, certainly not that of her father. My brain whirled. I could apparently arrive at nothing tangible, nothing logical. There yet remained the one possibility—the Chinaman, Li Min. His hands, small and delicate, might possibly have made the telltale print upon the window sill, but, in that event, why should Miss Temple hesitate to tell of it, had she seen him. The only possible solution filled me with horror. I could not for a moment believe it, yet it insisted upon forcing itself upon my mind: that Miss Temple and Li Min were acting together; that her father, too, was in the plot, as he must have been if he rebolted the window. The thing was clearly impossible, yet if not explained in this way, the Chinaman was clearly innocent, for I believed without question that, had he entered the room and committed the murder, he could in no possible way have bolted the window himself, from without, after leaving it. I walked along in silence, my mind confused, uncertain what to believe and what not, yet, as I looked at the strong, beautiful face of the girl beside me, I could not think that, whatever she might be lead to do for the sake of someone else, she could ever have committed such a crime herself. I also remembered suddenly Major Temple's angry remark, made to Robert Ashton as they stood in the hall after dinner the night before, that he would never allow Ashton to leave the house with the emerald in his possession. Was she shielding her father? Was it he, then, that she had seen
