"Well--yes; perhaps so," assented the man in a doubtful tone. "But what of this?" He flung the great light in front of poor Jane Cross's dress. A small portion of the body, where the gown fastened in front, had been torn away, as well as one of the wristbands. "It's no fall," said the man. "It's foul play--as I think." "Goodness bless me!" gasped the Squire. "Some villains must have got in. This comes of that other one's having left the front door on the latch." But I am not sure that any of us, including himself, believed she could be really dead. Susan returned with speed, and was followed by Mr. Lockett. He was a young man, thirty perhaps, pale and quiet, and much like what I remembered of his brother. Poor Jane Cross was certainly dead, he said--had been dead, he thought, an hour. But this could scarcely have been, as we knew. It was not, at the very utmost, above twenty-five minutes since Matilda went out to fetch the beer, leaving her alive and well. Mr. Lockett looked again, but thought he was not mistaken. When a young doctor takes up a crotchet, he likes to hold to it. A nameless sensation of awe fell upon us all. Dead! In that sudden manner! The Squire rubbed up his head like a helpless lunatic; Susan's eyes were round with horror; Matilda had thrown her apron over her face to hide its grief and tears. Leaving her for the present where she was, we turned to go upstairs. I stooped to pick up the overturned basket, but the policeman sharply told me to let all things remain as they were until he had time to look into them. The first thing the man did, on reaching the landing above, was to open the room doors one by one, and throw his bull's-eye light into them. They were all right, unoccupied, straight and tidy. On the landing of the upper floor lay one or two articles, which seemed to indicate that some kind of struggle had taken place there. A thimble here, a bodkin there, also the bit that had been torn out of the girl's gown in front, and the wristband from the sleeve. The balustrades were very handsome, but very low; on this upper landing, dangerously low. These bedrooms were all in order; the one in which the two servants slept, alone showing signs of occupation. Downstairs went Knapp again, carrying with him the torn-out pieces, to compare them with the gown. It was the print gown I had often seen Jane Cross wear, a black gown with white zigzag lines running down it. Matilda was wearing the fellow to it now. The pieces fitted in exactly. "The struggle must have taken place upstairs: not here," observed the doctor. Matilda, questioned and cross-questioned by the policeman, gave as succinct an account of the evening as her distressed state allowed. We stood round the kitchen while she told it.