So I called her up and announced my arrival.  There was something unusual in her tone, as though her throat was tense with indignation.  Always shrill, her elderly voice rasped my ear painfully through the receiver.

“I have changed the butcher, Mr. Lawrence,” she announced portentously.  “The last roast was a pound short, and his mutton-chops—­any self-respecting sheep would refuse to acknowledge them.”

As I said before, I can always tell from the voice in which Mrs. Klopton conveys the most indifferent matters, if something of real significance has occurred.  Also, through long habit, I have learned how quickest to bring her to the point.

“You are pessimistic this morning,” I returned.  “What’s the matter, Mrs. Klopton?  You haven’t used that tone since Euphemia baked a pie for the iceman.  What is it now?  Somebody poison the dog?”

She cleared her throat.

“The house has been broken into, Mr. Lawrence,” she said.  “I have lived in the best families, and never have I stood by and seen what I saw yesterday—­every bureau drawer opened, and my—­my most sacred belongings—­” she choked.

“Did you notify the police?” I asked sharply.

“Police!” she sniffed.  “Police!  It was the police that did it—­two detectives with a search warrant.  I—­I wouldn’t dare tell you over the telephone what one of them said when he found the whisky and rock candy for my cough.”

“Did they take anything?” I demanded, every nerve on edge.

“They took the cough medicine,” she returned indignantly, “and they said—­”

“Confound the cough medicine!” I was frantic.  “Did they take anything else?  Were they in my dressing-room?”

“Yes.  I threatened to sue them, and I told them what you would do when you came back.  But they wouldn’t listen.  They took away that black sealskin bag you brought home from Pittsburg with you!”

I knew then that my hours of freedom were numbered.  To have found Sullivan and then, in support of my case against him, to have produced the bag, minus the bit of chain, had been my intention.  But the police had the bag, and, beyond knowing something of Sullivan’s history, I was practically no nearer his discovery than before.  Hotchkiss hoped he had his man in the house off Washington Circle, but on the very night he had seen him Jennie claimed that Sullivan had tried to enter the Laurels.  Then—­suppose we found Sullivan and proved the satchel and its contents his?  Since the police had the bit of chain it might mean involving Alison in the story.  I sat down and buried my face in my hands.  There was no escape.  I figured it out despondingly.

Against me was the evidence of the survivors of the Ontario that I had been accused of the murder at the time.  There had been blood-stains on my pillow and a hidden dagger.  Into the bargain, in my possession had been found a traveling-bag containing the dead man’s pocket-book.