When they got there the car was still standing, the
headlight broken and the bonnet crushed, but there was no one to
be seen."
The detective went away immediately, and to Gertrude and me was
left the woman's part, to watch and wait. By luncheon nothing
had been found, and I was frantic. I went up-stairs to Halsey's
room finally, from sheer inability to sit across from Gertrude
any longer, and meet her terror-filled eyes.
Liddy was in my dressing-room, suspiciously red-eyed, and trying
to put a right sleeve in a left armhole of a new waist for me. I
was too much shaken to scold.
"What name did that woman in the kitchen give?" she demanded,
viciously ripping out the offending sleeve.
"Bliss. Mattie Bliss," I replied.
"Bliss. M. B. Well, that's not what she has on he suitcase. It
is marked N. F. C."
The new cook and her initials troubled me not at all. I put on
my bonnet and sent for what the Casanova liveryman called a
"stylish turnout." Having once made up my mind to a course
of action, I am not one to turn back. Warner drove me; he was
plainly disgusted, and he steered the livery horse as he would
the Dragon Fly, feeling uneasily with his left foot for the
clutch, and working his right elbow at an imaginary horn every
time a dog got in the way.
Warner had something on his mind, and after we had turned into
the road, he voiced it.
"Miss Innes," he said. "I overheard a part of a conversation
yesterday that I didn't understand.
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