“If she was, she didn’t show it. She may have been warned, of course; probably was. A question or two of the servant who brought the message would have let her know what she had to expect. No, she took my being there as the most natural thing in the world. She didn’t show more than a flicker or two of resentment over the manner in which the orders were given. She must, of course, be in a state of suppressed rebellion all the time, for I fancy that sort of thing is an every-day occurrence. I’m sorry for Victoria. I wouldn’t blame her much for anything she might resort to, short of poison, as an escape.” “Did you find out anything about the necklace?” I asked. “From the old lady herself, I mean? Whether she knows of the existence of the imitation one?” “I was disappointed there,” Mr. Smith said. “I thought that when Victoria had gone, Mrs. Corbin would unburden her mind. She has something weighing upon it, I should say. But the emotion she’d wasted over the matter of where I was to sleep had completely exhausted her. She had to ring for her nurse, and tell me we’d have our visit later. She wasn’t visible again all the afternoon. So I was told, at least, and of course I couldn’t question it.” Then, “Do you know anything about that nurse?” he asked. “She’s been with Mrs. Corbin two or three years,” I told him. “Punch regards her humorously, I think, but considers her above suspicion. Why? Did you notice anything queer about her?” “When I left Mrs. Corbin’s room,” he said, “she was parting from Victoria in the hall. Evidently they’d been talking somewhere. It struck me that the woman was frightfully upset--frightened or shocked, I couldn’t tell which. She might have been found out in something, or she might have been given some order she didn’t want to carry out.--They aren’t drugging that old lady, are they?” “She drugs herself, I understand--morphine. Naturally enough, after years of pain.” He looked like a very old man when I told him that, and he sat musing over it for a long time. Finally he roused himself. “Well, I didn’t find what I went for,” he said. “I made a point of strolling about the house. I managed to see several of the servants; not all of them, of course. But in a talk I had with Punch, I asked him whether any new house servants had been taken on during the last two weeks, and he said there had not. Somehow I don’t believe it’s the servants we have to reckon with anyhow. “I saw all the guests in the house eventually. There was quite a wait for the principal performers. The others were all gathered for the rehearsal of the ceremony, impatient as school children for it to be over with, too, so that they could run away and play. But Judy and the bridegroom, by failing for a long time to put in an appearance, kept them waiting.” “Was Bill Grant there?” I asked.