"Oo-oo-ooh! Don't leave me!" she almost shrieked. "Look! There is a graveyard! I won't stay here alone!" They were standing at the foot of the rough wooden steps leading up to the church door. "Pooh! Don't be afraid of tombstones," he scoffed; but he was conscious of a little shiver in his back. "They can't bite, you know. Besides, all churches have graveyards and crypts and--" "This one has no crypt," she announced positively. "Goodness, I'm mud up to my knees and rain down to them. Why doesn't he come?" "I'll give the signal; we had to arrange one, you know, for the sake of identity." He gave three loud, guttural coughs. A dog in the distance howled mournfully, as if in response. Anne crept closer to his side. "It sounded as if some one were dying," she whispered. "Look, isn't that a light?--over there among the gravestones!" A light flickered for an instant in the wretched little graveyard and then disappeared as mysteriously as it came. "It's gone! How ghostly!" "Extraordinary! I don't understand. By Jove, it's beginning to rain again. I'm sure to have tonsilitis. I feel it when I cough." He coughed again, louder than before. Suddenly the steady beam of a dark lantern struck their faces squarely; a moment later the cadaverous Mr. Hooker was climbing over the graveyard fence. "Am I late?" he asked, as he came forward. "I say, turn that beastly light the other way," complained Windomshire, half blinded. "I thought no one but robbers carried dark lanterns." "The darker the deed, the darker the lantern," said Mr. Hooker, genially. "Good-evening, madam. Are we the only ones here?" He was very matter-of-fact and business-like; Anne loathed him on the instant. "We're all here but the minister and the other witness. I'll cough again--although it hurts me to do it." He coughed thrice, but instead of a response in kind, three sharp whistles came from the trees at the left. "What's that?" he gasped. "Has he forgotten the signal?" "Maybe he is trying to cough," said Hooker, "and can't do any better than wheeze. It's this rotten weather." "No, it was a whistle. Good Heavens, Anne--it may be detectives." "Detectives!" exclaimed Mr. Hooker, hoarsely. "Then this is no place for me. Excuse me, I'll just step around the corner." As he scurried off, he might have been heard to mutter to himself: "They've been hounding me ever since that job in the Cosgrove cemetery. Damn 'em, I wonder if they think I'm up here to rob the grave of one of these jays." From which it may be suspected that Mr. Hooker had been employed in the nefarious at one time or another. "Detectives, Harry?" gasped Anne. "Why should there be detectives? We're not criminals."