Mrs. Bogart staggered back with a choking, frightened cry upon her lips; the fruit jars crashed to the floor, with a thud and the sound of splintering glass, and the woman herself toppled over in a dead faint. From the side of her face there gushed a stream of blood, where the ragged edge of a broken jar had slashed the flesh. After the woman's cry, the four men in the room up the hall stood staring at each other for a brief moment. "What's happened now?" gasped Wiggly Price, and Constable Griggs was too utterly stupefied to make a sound. "It sounds like a woman's scream," said Doctor Bushnell, looking no less dazed than the rest. Sergeant Tish was the first to leap into motion, projecting his pudgy body out into the hall with the other three at his heels. At the sight of the prostrate Mrs. Bogart, surrounded by broken and unbroken fruit jars, with the blood still streaming from her face, the New York detective stopped dead in his tracks. "What's this?" he shouted. "Who is this woman, and what's happened to her?" Constable Griggs edged forward and made a number of queer sounds before he finally found voice. "It--it's Mrs. Bogart--she that does the cookin' for the Gilmores!" he gulped. "She's all bloody. Do--do you reckon that she's been murdered, too?" Doctor Bushnell brushed past and knelt quickly to the floor at the side of the unconscious woman. "She's not dead!" exclaimed Wiggly Price, noting the rapid rise and fall of Mrs. Bogart's bosom. "Nor badly hurt, I think," said the physician, as he made a rapid examination. "The blood here is from a superficial wound; she's been cut by this broken glass. I wonder what _has_ happened to her?" He jerked his head toward the newspaper man. "Get my medicine kit, Price," he commanded. "You'll find it downstairs; I left it on the table in the library." Wiggly dashed down the stairs in instant response. Yes, what had happened to this woman whom Griggs identified as the Gilmore cook? Was this another angle to complicate the Greenacres tangle? Passing through the hall into the library he heard a familiar voice; it was "Tip" Gregory, a star reporter for a rival New York newspaper, _The Transcript_, pleading with the butler for admittance and information, and Bates was sternly refusing him either. Wouldn't Gregory have gnashed his teeth in baffled rage if he had known that Wiggly Price had things so sweetly to himself! But the situation was too tense for wasting any time or thoughts upon what was, after all, only an accidental triumph. He had the silly Etta Griggs to thank for being here, on the inside of a big story, instead of spending the morning canvassing the other papers for a job. In the library was Doctor Bushnell's medicine kit; he grabbed the handle of the little bag, wheeled and raced up the stairway again. Mrs. Bogart was stirring, a moan passed her lips, but she had not returned to consciousness. "Is she badly hurt, doctor?" Wiggly asked, as he placed the kit upon the floor.