"Then there was the kitchen," Clancy went on. "There wasn't a bit of perishable food anywhere around. The refrigerator was entirely empty and the doors left open, just as my mother used to do when we all went away anywhere for a visit. The ice had been taken out and put in the sink. There's a very little piece of it there now, or was when we looked the place over. Do you draw any conclusion from that?" "Only, as you say, that both the sisters must have intended to leave." "And you get nothing more from the little piece of ice that hasn't melted yet?" Morris shook his head. "Why, don't you see," Peter explained, with a little gleam in his eye, "that just about fixes the time they left. Given the size of the ice chamber, which is small, and the fact that the ice couldn't have been left on Sunday, don't you see that, with a hot night like last night, it would have melted entirely away if it had been put into the sink earlier than yesterday afternoon? The box wouldn't have held a piece big enough to last over if it had been put there in the morning. Somebody was in this apartment as late, I should say, as five o'clock yesterday afternoon." "Then there _was_ someone here when I came, just before lunch," exclaimed Morris, quite convinced by the other's rapid reasoning. "It's more than probable," said Peter. "At least there was someone here at a much later hour. I'm sure of that. Now, who was it? They evidently had no maid in the house. There's no bed in the maid's room and only a single bed and a big couch in the bedroom. Both of the sisters must have slept in there. Now, were they both here yesterday afternoon? and did they leave together? And then did someone break in?" he mused. "That's, of course, what it looks like ... and yet.... Why the glass on the outside of the kitchen window, if it was an outside job? And how do we know for certain that anything has been stolen? Is this robbery business camouflage?" He sat up suddenly and looked Donald Morris straight in the eye. "What do you think, yourself?" "I don't know what to think, Mr. Clancy," answered Donald, pressing his hand to his forehead. "I really don't. You see so much more clearly than I. You are able to reason everything out. You know everything that I do----" "Except--" said Peter, slowly and seriously--"you'll forgive my mentioning it if it has no possible bearing on the case, but it goes without saying that you're more anxious about Miss Blake than you could possibly be if she and her sister had just gone off on a trip and their apartment had been entered when they weren't here. You told me that you were alarmed about her--that was why you came here this morning. You mentioned a letter----"