She was plainly excited. Never have I known a woman who, confined to a wheel-chair, lived so hard. She did not allow life to pass her windows, if I may put it that way. She called it in, and set it moving about her chair, herself the nucleus around which were enacted all sorts of small neighborhood dramas and romances. Her secretaries did not marry. She married them. It is curious to look back and remember how Herbert and Sperry and myself had ignored this quality in her, in the Wells case. She was not to be ignored, as I discovered that afternoon. “Sit down,” she said. “You look half sick, Horace.” Nothing escapes her eyes, so I was careful to place myself with the lump on my head turned away from her. But I fancy she saw it, for her eyes twinkled. “Horace! Horace!” she said. “How I have detested you all week!” “I? You detested me?” “Loathed you,” she said with unction. “You are cruel and ungrateful. Herbert has influenza, and does not count. And Sperry is in love--oh yes, I know it. I know a great many things. But you!” I could only stare at her. “The strange thing is,” she went on, “that I have known you for years, and never suspected your sense of humor. You’ll forgive me, I know, if I tell you that your lack of humor was to my mind the only flaw in an otherwise perfect character.” “I am not aware--” I began stiffly. “I have always believed that I furnished to the Neighborhood Club its only leaven of humor.” “Don’t spoil it,” she begged. “Don’t. If you could know how I have enjoyed it. All afternoon I have been chuckling. The fire-tongs, Horace. The fire-tongs!” Then I knew that my wife had been to Mrs. Dane and I drew a long breath. “I assure you,” I said gravely, “that while doubtless I carried the wretched things home and--er--placed them where they were found, I have not the slightest recollection of it. And it is hardly amusing, is it?” “Amusing!” she cried. “It’s delicious. It has made me a young woman again. Horace, if I could have seen your wife’s face when she found them, I would give cheerfully almost anything I possess.” But underneath her mirth I knew there was something else. And, after all, she could convince my wife if she were convinced herself. I told the whole story--of the visit Sperry and I had made the night Arthur Wells was shot, and of what we discovered; of the clerk at the pharmacy and his statement, and even of the whiskey and its unfortunate effect--at which, I regret to say, she was vastly amused; and, last of all, of my experience the previous night in the deserted house. She was very serious when I finished. Tea came, but we forgot to drink it. Her eyes flashed with excitement, her faded face flushed. And, with it all, as I look back, there was an air of suppressed excitement that seemed to have nothing to do with my narrative. I remembered it, however, when the denouement came the following week.