People may read about crimes in newspapers all their lives, and yet never properly realize that crime exists. To appreciate what crime is, one must be brought to close quarters with crime, as Carpentaria was. Twelve hours ago murder to him had been nothing but a name. Now he knew the horror that murder inspires. And with the corpse of the cat Beppo lying at his feet, he felt that horror far more keenly even than in the night as he unearthed the corpse of the mysterious drunken man. He had actually seen the cat done to death, and had it not been for the greediness of Beppo, he himself would have lain there, stretched out in eternal quiet.

He looked at the half-empty bowl of milk and at the splashes of milk on the round painted table, reflecting that each splash was no doubt sufficient to kill a man.

He wondered what he must do, how he must begin to disentangle himself from the coil of danger that was surrounding him. He was not afraid. He was probably much too excited to be afraid. He was angry, startled, grieved, and puzzled, and nothing more. His mind turned naturally to Juliette—Juliette, his comforter and companion. He did not like the idea of frightening her by a recital of what had occurred, but he knew that he would be compelled to do so. He must talk confidentially to some one who understood him and admired him. Now, at that hour in the morning the faithful Juliette, her dress ornamented by an extremely small and attractive French apron, was in the habit of personally dusting the writing-table in Carpentaria’s study adjoining the bedroom. No profane hand ever touched that table, and Juliette’s own hand never ventured to arrange its sublime disorder. There were three servants in the house—the parlourmaid, the cook, and a scullery-maid. There might have been a dozen had Juliette so wished. But Juliette was a simple person; her father, the second husband of Carpentaria’s mother, had belonged to the plain and excellent French bourgeoisie, who know so well how to cook and how to save money, and Juliette had inherited his tastes. Juliette was always curbing Carpentaria’s instinct towards magnificence. She did not want even three servants, and there were a number of delicate tasks, such as the dusting of Carpentaria’s table, that she would not permit them to do.

Carpentaria touched nothing on the balcony. He went into the bedroom, fastened the window, and then hesitated. He could hear Juliette’s soft movements in the study. Ought he, could he, go to her and say bluntly: “Juliette, some one is trying to murder me, and you must take more care than you took this morning—you allowed my milk to be poisoned”?

At last he opened the door of the study.

But it was not Juliette dusting the sacred table. It was Jenkins, the parlourmaid!

Such a thing had never before happened in the united domesticity of Carpentaria and Juliette! It was astounding. It unnerved Carpentaria.

He locked the door of the bedroom, and put the key in his pocket.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded gruffly of the parlourmaid.

“Dusting your table, sir,” replied Jenkins, in a tone that respectfully asked to be informed whether Carpentaria was blind.

“Who told you to dust my table?”

“Mistress, sir.”

“Where is your mistress?”

“I don’t know, sir. She told me to come up and dust the room.” A pause. “I—er—really don’t know.”

“Go and find her. Ask her to speak to me at once.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Half a minute, Jenkins. It was you who brought my milk up?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Where did you take it from?”

“Mistress gave it me with her own hands, sir.”

“And you brought it direct to me?”

“Yes, sir.”

“No one else touched it?”

“No, sir.”

“Anybody called here this morning?”

“Called, sir?” Jenkins seemed ruffled.

“Yes. Anybody been to the house?”

“No, sir,” said Jenkins, as though in asking if anybody had called Carpentaria was reflecting upon her moral character. And she blushed.

“Very well. Go and find your mistress.”

Jenkins departed, and came back in a surprisingly short space of time.

“Mistress doesn’t seem to be about, sir,” said Jenkins.

“What? She hasn’t gone out, has she?”

“Not that I know of, sir. But I can’t find her.”

“Have you looked in her bedroom?”

“I knocked at the door, sir.”

“And there was no answer?”

“No, sir.”

“When did you last see your mistress?”

“When she told me to dust this room, sir, after I had brought up your milk.”

“Where was she?”

“In the dining-room, sir.”

A fearful thought ran through the mind of Carpentaria, cutting it like a lancet. Suppose that Juliette had been poisoned! Suppose that an attempt had been made against her, as against him, but with more success! He hurried out of the room and knocked loudly at her bedroom-door.

“Juliette! Are you there?”

No answer.

“Juliette, I say!”

Again no answer. His heart almost stopped. He opened the door and entered the room. It was empty, but already the bed had been made and everything tidied. He penetrated to the dressing-room, which was equally neat and equally empty.

Then he searched the house and the premises; he searched everywhere except in the little outhouse wherein was hidden the corpse of the drunken man. At length, after a futile cross-examination of the cook in the kitchen, he perceived that the scullery-maid, in the scullery was surreptitiously beckoning to him.

This ungainly chit, Polly, whose person was only kept presentable by the ceaseless efforts of Juliette, had red hair, rather less red than Carpentaria’s, and she worshipped him afar off. She had that “cult” for him which very humble servants do sometimes entertain for masters who never even throw them a glance. And now she was beckoning to him and making eyes!

He followed her through the scullery into the yard.

“Do you want mistress, sir?” asked Polly in a whisper.

“Yes.”

“Well, she’s over the wye, sir.”

“Over the way?”

“Yes, sir, at Mr. Ilam’s. Mrs. Ilam’s been here this morning, sir. Don’t tell mistress as I told you, sir, for the love of heving!”

Juliette was at Ilam’s! And he had twice found Juliette in the avenue during the night! And she had been strangely excited when she came to kiss him before going to bed.

In something less than fifteen seconds he was rattling loudly at Ilam’s door. He received no answer. He heard no sound within the house. Wondering where the servants could be, he assaulted the door again, this time furiously. A man who was rolling a lawn in the Oriental Gardens glanced up at him. Still there was no reply. He was just deciding to break into the house by way of a window, when the door opened very suddenly, and as he was leaning upon it, he pitched forward into the hall and into the arms of old Mrs. Ilam, who, with her white cap, her black dress and her parchment face, seemed aggrieved by this entrance.

“Mr. Carpentaria!” she protested, raising her shaking hands.

But she was admirably and overpoweringly calm, and her extreme age prevented Carpentaria from taking the measures which he would have taken had she been younger, less imposing, less august, less like a dead woman who walked.

“My sister is here, and I must see her at once.”

“No, Mr. Carpentaria; your sister is not here.” Her tone startled him. It was so cold and positive. But after a few seconds he thought she was lying.

“She has been here, then?”

“No, Mr. Carpentaria. She has not been here.”

“Really! But you have seen her this morning. You came to my house.”

“No———”

“Excuse me, Mrs. Ilam, I saw you from my——”

“Ah!—from your balcony? You saw me cross the avenue, but you did not see me enter your house. You could not have seen that from your balcony, even if I had entered; and, as it happens, I didn’t enter.”

“My servants say you came.”

“Your servants probably say a good many things, Mr. Carpentaria,” she smiled humorously.

The musician felt himself against a stone wall. “Can I see your son?” he asked at length of the imperturbable old woman.

“My son is in bed and far from well,” said Mrs. Ilam.

“Then I should like to talk to you instead,” said Carpentaria.

She seemed to burst into welcome.

“Come in, then, my dear man, do! Come in!” And she preceded him into the drawing-room, an apartment furnished in the richest Tottenham Court Road splendour. They sat down on either side of the hearth, where a fire was burning. He did not know exactly how to begin.

“Now, Mr. Carpentaria,” she encouraged him.

“Some very strange things have been happening, Mrs. Ilam,” said he.

He deemed that he might as well go directly to the point. He would come to Juliette afterwards. So long as Juliette was not in Ilam’s house she was probably in no immediate danger.

“To you?” asked the dame.

“To me. I saw some very strange things with my own eyes last night, and within the last twelve Lours there have been two attempts to murder me.”

A slight flush reddened the wrinkled yellow cheek of Mrs. Ilam. It seemed as though she tried to speak and could not. Her fingers worked convulsively.

“You, too?” he murmured, with apparent difficulty.

“Why do you say ‘you, too’?” Carpentaria demanded.

She paused again.

“It was the milk?” she seemed to stammer.

“Yes, the second attempt; it was the milk,” admitted Carpentaria.

She hid her face.

“The same attempt has been made against Josephus,” she said. “And he was so frightened it has made him ill. That is why he is not feeling very well this morning.”

“But does Mr. Ilam take milk for breakfast? I thought he always had ham and eggs?”

“Never!” said Mrs. Ilam. “Hot bread-and-milk. Nothing else.”

“And how did he find out that the milk was poisoned?” Carpentaria pursued.

“I—I don’t know,” said Mrs. Ilam. “But he did. He’s very particular about his food, is Jos. And he suspected something. So he tried it on Neptune, the Newfoundland. And Neptune is dead. He says he thinks it must be prussic acid. Oh, Mr. Carpentaria, what is this plot against us all? What are we to do?”

Carpentaria was reduced to muteness. The old lady had changed the trend of his thoughts. He had been secretly accusing Ilam, but if Ilam’s life also had been attempted, the case was very much altered. It was perhaps even more perilous. Still, Mrs. Ilam had done nothing to explain the extraordinary events of the night. He decided to be cautious.

“I happened to see lights in your house very late last night, or rather, early this morning,” he said. “I was afraid that either you or Mr. Ilam might be ill.”

His eyes sought hers and met them fully and squarely.

“Oh!” she exclaimed sadly. “Jos had a dreadful night. He does have them sometimes, you know. Bad dreams. In many ways he is just like a child. There are nights when I think his dreams are more real to him than his real life. Now, last night he dreamed there was a corpse lying on a bier in the avenue, and nothing would satisfy him but that I should come out with him to see. Fancy it! at my age! However, there was nothing—of course.”

Carpentaria said to himself that the old lady evidently was unaware of her son’s midnight escapade, and that he could get no further with her. The hope sprang up within him that Polly had been after all mistaken. Juliette might have gone out merely for a stroll and have returned ere then. He rose to take leave of Mrs. Ilam.

“What are you going to do?” she asked him.

“What about?”

“Well, my dear man, about this attempted poisoning.”

“I suppose we must inform the police,” he replied.

“Yes, I suppose so,” she agreed. “But perhaps it would be well to wait until you had had a talk with Jos. He’ll be getting up during the day.”

“We’ll see,” said Carpentaria.

“It’s a good thing it’s Sunday and we’re free, isn’t it?” she remarked.

He had got precisely as far as the drawing-room door, when a voice reached his ears from the upper story. “Mrs. Ilam! Mrs. Ilam! He’s eaten his ham and eggs. What about the marmalade?”

Carpentaria dashed into the hall and looked up the stairs, and he saw the head of Juliette over the banisters.

Behind him he heard a suppressed sigh from Mrs. Ilam.