XXXIII.--"KNOWN, KNOWN, ALL KNOWN" 321 XXXIV.--EXACTLY HALF-PAST THREE 329 XXXV.--A RUSE 335 _BOOK IV._ THE END OF A GREAT MYSTERY. XXXVI.--THE RESULT 341 XXXVII.--"TWO WEEKS!" 345 XXXVIII.--A WHITE SATIN GOWN 350 XXXIX.--THE WATCHFUL EYE 357 XL.--AS THE CLOCK STRUCK 364 XLI.--SECRET HISTORY 368 XLII.--WITH MISS BUTTERWORTH'S COMPLIMENTS 395 THAT AFFAIR NEXT DOOR. _BOOK I._ MISS BUTTERWORTH'S WINDOW. I. A DISCOVERY. I am not an inquisitive woman, but when, in the middle of a certain warm night in September, I heard a carriage draw up at the adjoining house and stop, I could not resist the temptation of leaving my bed and taking a peep through the curtains of my window. First: because the house was empty, or supposed to be so, the family still being, as I had every reason to believe, in Europe; and secondly: because, not being inquisitive, I often miss in my lonely and single life much that it would be both interesting and profitable for me to know. Luckily I made no such mistake this evening. I rose and looked out, and though I was far from realizing it at the time, took, by so doing, my first step in a course of inquiry which has ended---- But it is too soon to speak of the end. Rather let me tell you what I saw when I parted the curtains of my window in Gramercy Park, on the night of September 17, 1895. Not much at first glance, only a common hack drawn up at the neighboring curb-stone. The lamp which is supposed to light our part of the block is some rods away on the opposite side of the street, so that I obtained but a shadowy glimpse of a young man and woman standing below me on the pavement. I could see, however, that the woman--and not the man--was putting money into the driver's hand. The next moment they were on the stoop of this long-closed house, and the coach rolled off. It was dark, as I have said, and I did not recognize the young people,--at least their figures were not familiar to me; but when, in another instant, I heard the click of a night-key, and saw them, after a rather tedious fumbling at the lock, disappear from the stoop, I took it for granted that the gentleman was Mr. Van Burnam's eldest son Franklin, and the lady some relative of the family; though why this, its most punctilious member, should bring a guest at so late an hour into a house devoid of everything necessary to make the least exacting visitor comfortable, was a mystery that I retired to bed to meditate upon.