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for the hundredth time: “You’re sure the front door was locked?”
    “Of course I’m sure,” said Pendock irritably. “You all saw me doing it; and I remember struggling with the lock, trying to get out of the door…” Fumbling with the key, battling with the well-known little difficulty in turning it, and all the time with that sickening dread in his heart: half crazy with terror that he might find Fran, his lovely one, lying in the ditch with her beautiful head hacked off… of course, of course he was sure!
    “What about the french windows?” suggested Fran, leaning back against the banisters, smoking a cigarette; “after all there are french windows to all the downstairs rooms… the drawing-room, and the dining-room the other side of the hall, and the library, at the back… couldn’t one of them have been left open?”
    “It doesn’t sound like Bunsen, does it?” said Venetia doubtfully.
    Bunsen had been with Pendock’s father when Pendock himself had been only a boy; the Hart sisters had grown up under his mild blue eyes, and, apart from his sister in Tenfold, these were the only three people in the world he loved. Pendock he treated with a respectful austerity; but Fran and Venetia were the darlings of his heart, and he spent long hours devising small surprises and treats for them, dreaming over their futures and delighting in all their pretty little ways. He was a gentle old man, with a round, pink, wrinkled face and a fringe of neatly brushed silver hair; the impeccability of his dress broke down abruptly at his shoes which were stretched and slashed to accommodate his corns: he wore his trousers very long, in consequence. His whole life had been spent in the service of Pigeonsford, and if there were indeed a great world outside its gates, it was of no interest to him. It was very unlikely indeed that Bunsen had been careless with locks and bolts. “Still we might just ask him,” said Fran, scrambling to her feet.
    He was sitting at the kitchen table when she and Pendock found him, a hot cup of tea before him. He raised to his master weary and haunted eyes.
    “Why don’t you go and get some sleep, Bunsen?” said Pendock kindly.
    The old man stumbled to his feet, “I can’t, sir. I keep seeing the poor lady. You was warned, sir, and you took it bad enough; me, I just—just come upon it, lying there by the drive, and I can’t get it out of me mind. Not that I knew then that the ’ead was off, Mr. Pendock, sir: I don’t think I could ever have got across them lawns if I had. But I thought it was Miss Fran with ’er dark ’air all over her face and that little hat on her head—so help me God, I thought it was our Miss Fran…” He buried his face in his hands, but after a moment he said apologetically: “Begging your pardon, Miss Fran dear, for I shouldn’t be saying this in front of you, I know.”
    “Oh, Bunsen, don’t think of it; try to blot it out. And, look, don’t drink that tea—it’ll only keep you awake.”
    “You must go to bed, Bunsen, and take some aspirin or something,” said Pendock. “Sleep as long as you can; Cook and the girls can see to things in the morning… don’t you get up. But, I say, Bunsen—before you go: you locked up as usual last night?”
    “Oh yes, sir, just as usual; all but the front door and that, of course, I left for you just as I always do.”
    “And the windows and things? Don’t be afraid to say; it would be a relief to know that there had been some way into the house.”
    “I locked ’em all, sir, before I started for Tenfold,” said Bunsen, shocked at the bare suggestion that he might have failed in so important a duty; for was there not talk of an invasion, and a nice thing if he should be capable of leaving doors and windows open at such a time! “And the back door; I had to use my key to it when I got back to the house. If you’re doubtful, sir, we can go round and see; but you’ll find they’re all in order, sir—I’m