“I see nothing changed on the mantel,” she said, and the sound of her calm voice reassured her; she had not lost her grip, no matter what the mirror told her. “But”--she wrinkled her brow in thought as her eyes fell on a chair on which were flung a suit of clothes and some underclothing--“Mr. Brainard’s dress suit was laid neatly on the sofa over there, and his underclothes there also.” “Did you place them there?” asked Mitchell, jotting down her remarks. “No, they were there when I came into the bedroom Monday night.” “Did they appear mussed or rumpled the next morning, Miss Deane, as if Brainard had risen in the night and searched the pockets?” inquired Thorne, breaking his long silence. He had followed the detective’s questions and Vera’s replies with the closest attention, while his eyes never left her. It seemed almost as if he could not look elsewhere, and but for Vera’s absorption she could not have failed to note his intent regard. Vera hesitated before answering his question. “I think the clothes had not been touched,” she said. “My impression is that they lay exactly where Mr. Brainard placed them before retiring.” “Do you think Mr. Brainard, a sick man, placed the clothes on the sofa, and not Wyndham or Noyes?” “You must get that information from either of those men,” replied Vera wearily. “I was not present when Mr. Brainard was put to bed.” “But you can inform us, Miss Deane, if Dr. Noyes ordered an opiate administered to Brainard,” broke in Mitchell, and Thorne looked sharply at him. What was he driving at? “No, Dr. Noyes did not order an opiate.” Vera moved restlessly. “I gave Mr. Brainard a dose of aromatic spirits of ammonia as directed, and that was all.” Mitchell rose and stepped into the center of the bedroom and pointed to the transom. It was an oblong opening in the thick wall, forming the top, apparently, of what had formerly been a door jamb; the communicating doorway, judging from appearances, having been bricked up years before. The glass partition of the transom, secured at the bottom to the woodwork by hinges, hung down into the bedroom occupied by Craig Porter from chains fastened to the upper woodwork of the transom, and was barely visible from where Vera and Thorne stood in Brainard’s bedroom. The glass partition, when closed, was held in place by a catch lock at the top. “Look at that, Miss Deane,” exclaimed Mitchell harshly. “The transom is almost entirely open. Do you still maintain that you heard no sound during the night in this bedroom?” “I heard no sound which indicated murder was being committed in this room,” Vera protested vehemently. “I tell you I heard nothing,” observing Mitchell’s air of skepticism. “To prove to you that all sound does not carry into the next bedroom, one of you go in there, and I will steal from the hall into this room and over to the bed, and the one who remains can tell what takes place in this room.”