“How old are you?” he proceeded.

Lizzie looked at her mistress despairingly.  “Have I got to answer that?” she wailed.  Miss Cornelia nodded—­inexorably.

Lizzie braced herself.  “Thirty-two,” she said, with an arch toss of her head.

The detective looked surprised and slightly amused.

“She’s fifty if she’s a day,” said Miss Cornelia treacherously in spite of a look from Lizzie that would have melted a stone.

The trace of a smile appeared and vanished on the detective’s face.

“Now, Lizzie,” he said sternly, “do you ever walk in your sleep?”

“I do not,” said Lizzie indignantly.

“Don’t care for the country, I suppose?”

“I do not!”

“Or detectives?” Anderson deigned to be facetious.

“I do not!” There could be no doubt as to the sincerity of Lizzie’s answer.

“All right, Lizzie.  Be calm.  I can stand it,” said the detective with treacherous suavity.  But he favored her with a long and careful scrutiny before he moved to the table and picked up the note that had been thrown through the window.  Quietly he extended it beneath Lizzie’s nose.

“Ever see this before?” he said crisply, watching her face.

Lizzie read the note with bulging eyes, her face horror-stricken.  When she had finished, she made a gesture of wild disclaimer that nearly removed a portion of Anderson’s left ear.

“Mercy on us!” she moaned, mentally invoking not only her patron saint but all the rosary of heaven to protect herself and her mistress.

But the detective still kept his eye on her.

“Didn’t write it yourself, did you?” he queried curtly.

“I did not!” said Lizzie angrily.  “I did not!”

“And—­you’re sure you don’t walk in your sleep?” The bare idea strained Lizzie’s nerves to the breaking point.

“When I get into bed in this house I wouldn’t put my feet out for a million dollars!” she said with heartfelt candor.  Even Anderson was compelled to grin at this.

“Then I won’t ask you to,” he said, relaxing considerably; “That’s more money than I’m worth, Lizzie.”

“Well, I’ll say it is!” quoth Lizzie, now thoroughly aroused, and flounced out of the room in high dudgeon, her pompadour bristling, before he had time to interrogate her further.

He replaced the note on the table and turned back to Miss Cornelia.  If he had found any clue to the mystery in Lizzie’s demeanor, she could not read it in his manner.

“Now, what about the butler?” he said.

“Nothing about him—­except that he was Courtleigh Fleming’s servant.”

Anderson paused.  “Do you consider that significant?”

A shadow appeared behind him deep in the alcove—­a vague, listening figure—­Dale—­on tiptoe, conspiratorial, taking pains not to draw the attention of the others to her presence.  But both Miss Cornelia and Anderson were too engrossed in their conversation to notice her.