“No more than I would be anywhere. I have capable and devoted servants, and I have tennis courts and an archery field and I have many boats and can get any place I wish to go in them. No, I am not so lonely as I sometimes was here in this great house. Of course, since my mother’s death, I haven’t gone much in society but I am thinking of going out more in the future.” Keeley Moore listened to the girl with the deepest interest. I wondered what he would say if he knew what I knew of her midnight canoe trip! But I vowed to myself then and there that I should never tell of that. I knew I might be doing wrong, withholding such an important bit of information, but I was determined to keep my secret. I tried to make myself think it was some other girl I had seen, but the alert figure before me and the white costume said plainly that I was making no mistake in recognizing the girl of the canoe. From beneath her little white felt hat strayed a few golden curls, and I well remembered the bare head that had looked silvery in the moonlight. I said to myself, by way of placating my conscience, that when the time came I would tell Kee about it, but I certainly did not propose to give the Coroner a chance to suspect this lovely girl of crime. Apparently, the Coroner had no slightest suspicion of Alma, but you can’t tell. He may have been drawing her out in order to prove her complete innocence or he may have felt that she had motive and must be closely questioned. “Were you at home last evening?” Hart said, in a casual tone. “Yes, I was.” “You didn’t go out all the evening or night?” “No. I didn’t leave the island.” “Whew!” I exclaimed to myself, “it’s lucky she doesn’t know that I know!” I gazed at her in admiration. I didn’t, I _couldn’t_ think that she had killed her uncle, but knowing, as I did, that she had visited Pleasure Dome, I could only think that she had come on some secret errand. “Maybe,” I puzzled over it, “she came to see her uncle on some private business, and saw the murderer at his work. Maybe she knew the criminal, and is shielding him.” For I had already made up my mind that some one in the house had killed Sampson Tracy. I didn’t believe in any burglar or intruder. I thought a member of the family or household had done the deed, and, presumably, for the sake of inheritance. I had heard there were large bequests to the servants in Tracy’s will, and there were several men to suspect. I longed for a talk alone with Kee, but I saw this could not occur very soon. “How did you occupy your evening?” pursued Hart, and I listened eagerly for the answer. “I had an interesting book I was reading and after dinner I sat in my living room with the book until I finished the story. Then I played on the piano a little, as I often do in the evening, and about half-past ten I went to bed.” All of this was stated in a calm, even voice, and with the most clear and unflinching gaze of the brown eyes.