The women are bad enough, the huzzies;
but the men are worse!”  There was neither anxiety nor indignation in
Miss Trelawny’s voice or manner as she said:

“I think, Mrs. Grant, we had better try to do with those we have. Whilst my dear Father is ill we shall not be having any company, so
that there will be only three now in the house to attend to. If those
servants who are willing to stay are not enough, I should only get
sufficient to help them to do the work. It will not, I should think,
be difficult to get a few maids; perhaps some that you know already. And please bear in mind, that those whom you get, and who are suitable
and will stay, are henceforth to have the same wages as those who are
remaining. Of course, Mrs. Grant, you well enough understand that
though I do not group you in any way with the servants, the rule of
double salary applies to you too.”  As she spoke she extended her long,
fine-shaped hand, which the other took and then, raising it to her
lips, kissed it impressively with the freedom of an elder woman to a
younger. I could not but admire the generosity of her treatment of her
servants. In my mind I endorsed Mrs. Grant’s sotto voce remark as she
left the room:

“No wonder the house is like a King’s house, when the mistress is a
Princess!”

“A Princess!”  That was it. The idea seemed to satisfy my mind, and to
bring back in a wave of light the first moment when she swept across my
vision at the ball in Belgrave Square. A queenly figure! tall and
slim, bending, swaying, undulating as the lily or the lotos. Clad in a
flowing gown of some filmy black material shot with gold. For ornament
in her hair she wore an old Egyptian jewel, a tiny crystal disk, set
between rising plumes carved in lapis lazuli. On her wrist was a broad
bangle or bracelet of antique work, in the shape of a pair of spreading
wings wrought in gold, with the feathers made of coloured gems. For
all her gracious bearing toward me, when our hostess introduced me, I
was then afraid of her. It was only when later, at the picnic on the
river, I had come to realise her sweet and gentle, that my awe changed
to something else. For a while she sat, making some notes or memoranda. Then putting them
away, she sent for the faithful servants. I thought that she had
better have this interview alone, and so left her. When I came back
there were traces of tears in her eyes. The next phase in which I had a part was even more disturbing, and
infinitely more painful. Late in the afternoon Sergeant Daw came into
the study where I was sitting. After closing the door carefully and
looking all round the room to make certain that we were alone, he came
close to me. “What is it?” I asked him. “I see you wish to speak to me privately.”

“Quite so, sir! May I speak in absolute confidence?”

“Of course you may. In anything that is for the good of Miss
Trelawny—and of course Mr. Trelawny—you may be perfectly frank. I
take it that we both want to serve them to the best of our powers.”  He
hesitated before replying:

“Of course you know that I have my duty to do; and I think you know me
well enough to know that I will do it. I am a policeman—a detective;
and it is my duty to find out the facts of any case I am put on,
without fear or favour to anyone. I would rather speak to you alone,
in confidence if I may, without reference to any duty of anyone to
anyone, except mine to Scotland Yard.”

“Of course! of course!” I answered mechanically, my heart sinking, I
did not know why. “Be quite frank with me. I assure you of my
confidence.”

“Thank you, sir. I take it that what I say is not to pass beyond
you—not to anyone. Not to Miss Trelawny herself, or even to Mr.
Trelawny when he becomes well again.”

“Certainly, if you make it a condition!” I said a little more stiffly. The man recognised the change in my voice or manner, and said
apologetically:

“Excuse me, sir, but I am going outside my duty in speaking to you at
all on the subject. I know you, however, of old; and I feel that I can
trust you. Not your word, sir, that is all right; but your discretion!”

I bowed. “Go on!” I said. He began at once:

“I have gone over this case, sir, till my brain begins to reel; but I
can’t find any ordinary solution of it. At the time of each attempt no
one has seemingly come into the house; and certainly no one has got
out. What does it strike you is the inference?”

“That the somebody—or the something—was in the house already,” I
answered, smiling in spite of myself. “That’s just what I think,” he said, with a manifest sigh of relief. “Very well! Who can be that someone?”

“‘Someone, or something,’ was what I said,” I answered. “Let us make it ‘someone,’ Mr. Ross! That cat, though he might have
scratched or bit, never pulled the old gentleman out of bed, and tried
to get the bangle with the key off his arm. Such things are all very
well in books where your amateur detectives, who know everything before
it’s done, can fit them into theories; but in Scotland Yard, where the
men aren’t all idiots either, we generally find that when crime is
done, or attempted, it’s people, not things, that are at the bottom of
it.”

“Then make it ‘people’ by all means, Sergeant.”

“We were speaking of ‘someone,’ sir.”

“Quite right. Someone, be it!”

“Did it ever strike you, sir, that on each of the three separate
occasions where outrage was effected, or attempted, there was one
person who was the first to be present and to give the alarm?”

“Let me see! Miss Trelawny, I believe, gave the alarm on the first
occasion. I was present myself, if fast asleep, on the second; and so
was Nurse Kennedy. When I woke there were several people in the room;
you were one of them. I understand that on that occasion also Miss
Trelawny was before you. At the last attempt I was in the room when
Miss Trelawny fainted. I carried her out and went back. In returning,
I was first; and I think you were close behind me.”

Sergeant Daw thought for a moment before replying:

“She was present, or first, in the room on all the occasions; there was
only damage done in the first and second!”

The inference was one which I, as a lawyer, could not mistake. I
thought the best thing to do was to meet it half-way. I have always
found that the best way to encounter an inference is to cause it to be
turned into a statement. “You mean,” I said, “that as on the only occasions when actual harm was
done, Miss Trelawny’s being the first to discover it is a proof that
she did it; or was in some way connected with the attempt, as well as
the discovery?”

“I didn’t venture to put it as clear as that; but that is where the
doubt which I had leads.”  Sergeant Daw was a man of courage; he
evidently did not shrink from any conclusion of his reasoning on facts. We were both silent for a while. Fears began crowding in on my own
mind. Not doubts of Miss Trelawny, or of any act of hers; but fears
lest such acts should be misunderstood.