None of us felt talkative.  Bella had followed the men up and had been put out, and sat sniffling by herself in the den.  Aunt Selina was working over a jig-saw puzzle in the library, and declaring that some of it must be lost.  Anne and Leila Mercer were embroidering, and Betty and I sat idle, our hands in our laps.  The whole atmosphere of the house was mysterious.  Anne told over again of the strange noises the night her necklace was stolen.  Betty asked me about the time when the comfort slipped from under my fingers.  And when, in the midst of the story, the telephone rang, we all jumped and shrieked.

In an hour or so they sent for Flannigan, and he went upstairs.  He came down again soon, however, and returned with something over his arm that looked like a rope.  It seemed to be made of all kinds of things tied together, trunk straps, clothesline, bed sheets, and something that Flannigan pointed to with rage and said he hadn’t been able to keep his clothes on all day.  He refused to explain further, however, and trailed the nondescript article up the stairs.  We could only gaze after him and wonder what it all meant.

The conclave lasted far into the night.  The feminine contingent went to bed, but not to sleep.  Some time after midnight, Mr. Harbison and Max went downstairs and I could hear them rattling around testing windows and burglar alarms.  But finally every one settled down and the rest of the night was quiet.

Betty Mercer came into my room the next morning, Sunday, and said Anne Brown wanted me.  I went over at once, and Anne was sitting up in bed, crying.  Dal had slipped out of the room at daylight, she said, and hadn’t come back.  He had thought she was asleep, but she wasn’t, and she knew he was dead, for nothing ever made Dal get up on Sunday before noon.

There was no one moving in the house, and I hardly knew what to do.  It was Betty who said she would go up and rouse Mr. Harbison and Max, who had taken Jim’s place in the studio.  She started out bravely enough, but in a minute we heard her flying back.  Anne grew perfectly white.

“He’s lying on the upper stairs!” Betty cried, and we all ran out.  It was quite true.  Dal was lying on the stairs in a bathrobe, with one of Jim’s Indian war clubs in his hand.  And he was sound asleep.

He looked somewhat embarrassed when he roused and saw us standing around.  He said he was going to play a practical joke on somebody and fell asleep in the middle of it.  And Anne said he wasn’t even an intelligent liar, and went back to bed in a temper.  But Betty came in with me, and we sat and looked at each other and didn’t say much.  The situation was beyond us.

The doctor let Jim out the next day, there having been nothing the matter with him but a stomach rash.  But Jim was changed; he mooned around Bella, of course, as before, but he was abstracted at times, and all that day—­Sunday—­he wandered off by himself, and one would come across him unexpectedly in the basement or along some of the unused back halls.