"I couldn't see a thing," he said, at last, "except a shadow moving up and down, as you said. And I heard the sounds. The woman is working at something in the cellar--something that requires time--something which must be done secretly. I couldn't make anything out of the shadows, and not much out of the sounds--at least, I fear it's only my imagination which gave them the significance they had for me." "What significance did they have?" I asked. "I'm half afraid to tell you, Lester; you'll laugh at me. But as I bent outside that ventilator yonder with my ear against it, I could have sworn that the person inside was engaged in shovelling earth--shovelling it into--a grave!" A little shudder ran through me at the words; never was laughter farther from my thoughts. "A grave!" I stammered. "But whose grave?" "I don't know--Marcia Lawrence's, perhaps." "Marcia Lawrence sailed on the _Umbria_." "You don't know she did. You don't even believe she did." "Whether she did or not, who would kill her, and why?" "Ah, if you come to the why and wherefore, I can't answer you--not yet." "Besides," I went on, "the writing on the message left at the West Street office was her writing." "Perhaps it was only a good imitation--you can't be absolutely sure that you've ever seen a sample of her writing. There's nothing to prove that she wrote either the note or the message." "But Curtiss identified them--he was sure the writing was hers." "Curtiss wasn't in a condition to be sure of anything. But suppose it was hers. She may have wished to blind her mother and Curtiss completely--she may have wished them to think that she had really gone abroad--she must have foreseen that you would trace the telegram. She may have done all that before she came back here----" "Came back here?" I repeated, suddenly finding a dozen arguments against my own theory of half an hour before. "Walk into the lion's jaws? Nonsense, Godfrey! Place herself in the power of the people who, I suppose you think, killed her!" "I don't think they killed her," Godfrey said composedly. "My belief is that she killed herself to escape her husband--to get out of the tangle in which she'd involved herself." "Her husband! You cling to the husband then, do you?" "More than ever. He's an Italian--a tall, well-built, handsome fellow, with black eyes and a most becoming black moustache. He has a florid complexion and can speak English, though with a strong accent. He smokes cigarettes, which he rolls himself, and he has lost the tip of the little finger of his left hand. He's fond of music; perhaps himself a singer or musician, and it may have been as instructor that he first met Miss Lawrence----" I had been staring at Godfrey open-mouthed; I could restrain myself no longer. "But how do you know all this?" I gasped. "Or is it merely a fairy tale?"