"This door, the last," and Bobsy paused at the door to the Terrace, "is the one at which Miss Vernon entered. If any one else had come in here she would have seen him. That completes our circuit. No one could have gained access to this room except the ones under consideration. Now we are faced by the fact that one of those two women committed the murder, and it's up to us to decide which one." "There's the fireplace," suggested Steele. "There was a fire there that night," Blake asserted. "That is, there had been, for the evening was a little chilly, and too, Mrs. Stannard is fond of an open fire. It was burned out when--when it all happened, but the embers were smouldering when I came into the room. And no one could come down the chimney, anyway. It's a crooked flue, and it's full of soot beside." "No one ever comes down a chimney," said Roberts, "but it's always well to look into it." He peered up into the blackness, but the even coat of soot showed no scratches or marks. "Then there's no ingress other than those we've noted," Steele mused. "There's no skylight, no cupboards, no doors up in that balcony place," he ran up and across it, as he spoke, tapping on the wainscoated wall. "Solid," he said, as he came down the other little stair. "Now, is there any trap door?" They lifted rugs and hammered on the floor but the oak was an unmarred surface, and no opening was there of any sort. "I wanted to be sure," said Roberts, as, a little shamefacedly he pounded on the floorboards around the West window. "Now, I am sure. We have only the two doors to deal with. The door from the Terrace and the one from the studio. Let's look at them both." Stepping out onto the beautiful covered Terrace, the men paused to take in the glories of the scene. The splendid lawns sloping down to even more splendid gardens were the plan of an artist and a Nature lover both. The October foliage was alight and aglow, and the Autumn flowers were masses of gorgeous bloom. But after a whiff or two of the sunlit morning air, they returned to their quest. "On this terrace Miss Vernon and Barry Stannard sat until after eleven," Roberts said; "I got that from young Stannard himself." "Don't put too much faith in those people's ideas of time," warned Steele. "He may think it was after eleven and it may have been much earlier." "You're right, there. Well, anyway, he sat here with her, in the dark,--he told me he had turned off the Terrace light,--and then he went off to give the dogs some exercise. I believe they go for a trot every night, don't they, Blake?" "Yes, sir; Mr. Barry almost always romps about with the dogs of an evening." "Well, that leaves Miss Vernon alone here for an indefinite--I mean, an indeterminate time. Now, why doesn't Mr. Courtenay see her, as he sits on that lawn seat yonder?" "Too dark," said Steele, laconically.