The girl admitted that they were quarrelsome words, but declared she did not remember exactly what had been said. Something in the expression of the maid, Agnes, caught the eye of the coroner, and he suddenly turned to her, saying, "Did you overhear this conversation?" Taken aback by the unexpected question, Agnes stammered, "Yes, sir, I did." "Where were you?" "In the dining room, clearing the table." "Where was Miss Clyde?" "In the hall, just about to go upstairs." "And Mrs. Pell?" "In the hall, by the living-room door." "Why were they in the hall?" "Mr. and Mrs. Bowen had just left, and the ladies had said good-bye to them at the front door, and then they stood talking to each other a few moments." "What were they talking about?" Agnes hesitated, but on further insistence of the coroner she said, "Miss Iris was complaining to Mrs. Pell about her habit of playing tricks." "Was Miss Clyde angry at her aunt?" "She sounded so." "Certainly I was," broke in Iris. "I had stood that foolishness just as long as I could----" "You are not the witness, for the moment, Miss Clyde," said the coroner, severely. "Agnes, what did Mrs. Pell say to her niece in response to her chiding?" "She only laughed, and said that Miss Iris looked like a circus clown." "Then what did Miss Clyde say?" "She said that Mrs. Pell was a fiend in human shape and that she hated her. Then she ran upstairs and went into her own room and slammed the door." "Have you any reason to think, Agnes, that there is any secret mode of connection between Mrs. Pell's sitting room and Miss Clyde's bedroom, directly above it?" "Why, no, sir, I never heard of such a thing." "Absurd!" broke in Winston Bannard, "utterly absurd. If there were such a thing, it could certainly be discovered by your expert detectives." "There isn't any," declared Hughes, positively. "I've sounded the walls and examined the floor and ceiling, and there's not a chance of it. The way the murderer got out of that locked room is a profound mystery, but it won't be solved by means of a secret entrance." "Yet what other possibility can be suggested?" went on Timken, thoughtfully. "And the connection needn't be directly with Miss Clyde's room. Suppose there is a sliding wall panel, or an exit to the cellar, in some way." "But there isn't," insisted Hughes. "I'm not altogether ignorant of architecture, and there is no such thing in any part of that room. Moreover, how could any outsider come to the house, get in, and get into that room, without any member of the household seeing his approach? The two women servants were in the house, but Campbell, the chauffeur, and Purdy, the gardener, were out of doors, and could have seen anyone who came in at the gate." "Might not the intruder have entered while the family was at dinner, and concealed himself in Mrs. Pell's sitting room, until she went in there after dinner?" "Possibly," agreed Hughes, "but, in that case, how did the intruder get out?"