“And—­Flannigan, here’s something for you, on account.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Dal turned to go out, tripped over the rug, said something, and passed me without an idea of my presence.  A moment later Flannigan went out, and I was left, huddled against the wall, and alone.

It was puzzling enough.  “Four long and two short!” “All but the powder!” Not that I believed for a moment what Max had said, and anyhow Flannigan was the sanest person I ever saw in my life.  But it all seemed a part of the mystery that had been hanging over us for several days.  I felt my way across the room and knelt by the pans.  Yes, they were there, full of paper and mounted on bricks.  It had not been a delusion.

And then I straightened on my knees suddenly, for an automobile passing under the windows had sounded four short honks and two long ones.  The signal was followed instantly by a crash.  The foot bath had fallen from its supports, and lay, quivering and vibrating with horrid noises at my feet.  The next moment Mr. Harbison had thrown open the door and leaped into the room.

“Who’s there?” he demanded.  Against the light I could see him reaching for his hip pocket, and the rest crowding up around him.

“It’s only me,” I quavered, “that is, I. The—­the dish pan upset.”

“Dish pan!” Bella said from back in the crowd.  “Kit, of course!”

Jim forced his way through then and turned on the lights.  I have no doubt I looked very strange, kneeling there on the bare floor, with a row of pans mounted on bricks behind me, and the furniture all piled on itself in a back corner.

“Kit!  What in the world—!” Jim began, and stopped.  He stared from me to the pans, to the windows, to the bric-a-brac on the mantel, and back to me.

I sat stonily silent.  Why should I explain?  Whenever I got into a foolish position, and tried to explain, and tell how it happened, and who was really to blame, they always brought it back to me somehow.  So I sat there on the floor and let them stare.  And finally Lollie Mercer got her breath and said, “How perfectly lovely; it’s a charade!”

And Anne guessed “kitchen” at once.  “Kit, you know, and the pans and—­all that,” she said vaguely.  At that they all took to guessing!  And I sat still, until Mr. Harbison saw the storm in my eyes and came over to me.

“Have you hurt your ankle?” he said in an undertone.  “Let me help you up.”

“I am not hurt,” I said coldly, “and even if I were, it would be unnecessary to trouble you.”

“I can not help being troubled,” he returned, just as evenly.  “‘You see, it makes me ill for days if my car runs over a dog.’”

Luckily, at that moment Dal came in.  He pushed his way through the crowd without a word, shut off the lights, crashed through the pans and slammed the shutters closed.  Then he turned and addressed the rest.

“Of all the lunatics—!” he began, only there was more to it than that.  “A fellow goes to all kinds of trouble to put an end to this miserable situation, and the entire household turns out and sets to work to frustrate the whole scheme.  You like to stay here, don’t you, like chickens in a coop?  Where’s Flannigan?”