"On the twenty-eighth of December last, when Emily Baker came to work as usual, she was rather surprised not to see or hear Miss Clarke moving about the place. As a rule she was out in the yard by the time Emily arrived; the chickens would have had their hot mash and the empty pans would have been left for Emily to wash up. But this morning nothing. In the girl's own words there was a creepy kind of lonely feeling about the house. She knew that Mr. Clarke was not at home. The day before the servants at Meere Court had their annual Christmas party, and Mr. Clarke had been asked to help with the tree and to entertain the children. He had announced his intention of putting up afterwards at the Deanery Hotel for the night, a thing he was rather fond of doing whenever he was asked out to parties and did not know what time he might be able to get away. "Emily, when she arrived, had found the front door on the latch, as usual, therefore, she reflected, Miss Clarke must have been downstairs and drawn the bolts. But where could she be now? Never, never would she have gone out before feeding her chickens, on such a cold morning, too! "At this point Emily gave up reflecting, and proceeded to action. She went up to her mistress's room. It was empty, and the bed had not been slept in. Genuinely alarmed now, she ran down again, her next objective being the parlour. The door was, as usual, locked on the outside, but, contrary to precedent, the key was not in the lock; thinking it had dropped out, the girl searched for it, but in vain, and at one moment, when she moved the small mat which stood before the door of the locked room, she at once became aware of an over-powering smell of gas. "This proved the death-blow to Emily's fortitude; she took to her heels and ran out of the house and down the road toward the village, nor did she halt until she came to the local police-station, where she gave as coherent an account as she could of the terrible state of things at Hardacres. "You will remember that when the police broke open the door of the parlour, the first thing they saw was the body of Miss Clarke lying full-length on the floor. The poor woman was quite dead, suffocated by the poisonous fumes of gas which was fully turned on in the old-fashioned chandelier above her head. The one window had been carefully latched, and the thick curtains closely drawn together; the chimney had been stuffed up with newspaper and paper had been thrust into every aperture so as to exclude the slightest possible breath of air. There was a wad of it in the keyhole, and the mat on the landing outside had been carefully arranged against the door with the same sinister object. "The news spread like wildfire and soon the entire neighbourhood was gloating over a sensation the like of which had not come its way for generations past." §2