“No,” said Miss Farquharson. “Now we are here we’ll stay here. I am anxious to hear what this lady has to say.” “But,” said Lord Manton, “we can’t possibly hear anything while----” Miss Farquharson approached Mrs. Dick, grasped her two hands, and spoke sternly to her. She repeated the treatment with her niece. It was most efficacious. Both the younger ladies seemed to be afraid of Miss Farquharson. They had a cowed, terrified look when she left them; but they had stopped making a noise. “Thank you,” said Lord Manton. “Now, Miss Blow.” “I begin,” said Miss Blow, “with the two latest cases. These gentlemen, Members of Parliament, as I understand, set out on their bicycles, to ride to Pool-a-donagh. They did not arrive there. They were seen in safety three miles out of Clonmore by a man who was carting turf.” “How do you know that?” said Mr. Goddard. “The hotel-keeper told me,” said Miss Blow. “Oh, Jimmy O’Loughlin! I see. I wouldn’t take every word he says for gospel if I were you, Miss Blow.” “I don’t see,” said Miss Blow, “that there’s much difference between him and the rest of you. I haven’t heard six consecutive words of truth since I came to Clonmore.” “There you are now, Goddard,” said Lord Manton. “That’s what you get by interrupting. Don’t mind him, Miss Blow. Please go on. What you say is most interesting.” “There is just one house between the spot at which they were seen and Pool-a-donagh,” said Miss Blow. “The hotel-keeper told me that too.” “I think that’s true,” said Miss Farquharson. “I noticed that there were very few houses while we drove along yesterday.” “Therefore,” said Miss Blow, “they were murdered in that house.” Mr. Goddard started violently. The sequence of Miss Blow’s reasoning had the effect of a strong electric shock on him. He would have protested if Mrs. Dick had not begun to wail again. When she was pacified by Miss Farquharson’s scowls, Lord Manton began to speak. “Perhaps----” he said. “I know what you’re going to say,” said Miss Blow. “You are going to suggest that they are not murdered, but that they have deserted their wives.” She glanced at Miss Farquharson as she spoke. “I wish you wouldn’t talk of us as if we were all their wives,” said Miss Farquharson. “I am not a married woman. I am Mr. Sanders’ aunt. That is his wife.” She pointed to the pale Mrs. Sanders, leaving Miss Blow to infer that the lady who shrieked was the wife of the other Member of Parliament. “That they have deserted these ladies,” said Miss Blow, accepting the correction, “because they wear red dressing-gowns, and----” “But I don’t,” wailed Mrs. Dick; “I’ve never had a red dressing-gown. Richard always liked me in blue. He couldn’t bear red. He used to say---- Oh, poor Richard!” “There!” said Lord Manton, with an air of triumph; “what did I tell you, Miss Blow? You see for yourself now that the man had the strongest possible objection to a red dressing-gown.”