"First with Mr. Graves, and later--"
The words died on my tongue. Some one had been in the room since my
last visit there.
"He has been here!" I gasped. "I left the room in tolerable order.
Look at it!"
"When were you here last?"
"At seven-thirty, or thereabouts."
"Where were you between seven-thirty and eight-thirty?"
"In the kitchen with Peter." I told him then about the dog, and about
finding him shut in the room.
The wash-stand was pulled out. The sheets of Mr. Ladley's manuscript,
usually an orderly pile, were half on the floor. The bed coverings had
been jerked off and flung over the back of a chair.
Peter, imprisoned, _might_ have moved the wash-stand and upset the
manuscript--Peter had never put the bed-clothing over the chair, or
broken his own leg.
"Humph!" he said, and getting out his note-book, he made an exact
memorandum of what I had told him, and of the condition of the room.
That done, he turned to me.
"Mrs. Pitman," he said, "I'll thank you to call me Mr. Ladley for the
next day or so.
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