in the best armchair, now briefly explained that she had no pupil to offer, but had come about something quite different.
"Oh, dear! How silly of me," said Muriel. Then, with the nervous purposefulness of the indigent, she continued hastily, "But if you're selling anything, I really don't need it, thank you."
She rose, as she said this, with the object of showing Mrs. Bradley out, but the visitor remained seated, and replied :
"I have nothing to sell. My errand is a painful one. If, when you have heard what I have to say, you still wish me to go, I shall go at once."
Muriel, looking extremely frightened, sat down again.
"Oh, dear," she said. "No, I didn't think you'd come to sell anything, although really they employ the most respectable people, I'm sure. In fact, I did a little canvassing myself after— after my husband's death, but I didn't like it at all. Some of the people were very rude and unkind. I suppose they have to be, with people bothering them all day. Still, it wasn't very pleasant."
"It is about your husband's death that I have come," said Mrs. Bradley.
"I don't understand. He died—several years ago. There couldn't be—that dreadful woman hasn't left a confession?"
"No, nothing like that. Mrs. Turney, I am investigating matters connected with the trial of Bella Foxley. I wonder whether you would tell me one or two things I very badly want to know?"
"Well—I don't know. You see, I don't want to get into any trouble. After all, the jury did say she didn't do it, although I know she did."
"There will be no trouble, I assure you. I have already had a long conversation with one of the jurymen who acquitted Bella Foxley. And I am in touch with certain aspects of the case which seem to me significant. Mr. Conyers Eastward——"
"But he defended her!"
"Yes, I know he did. But never mind that now. The point is that he is a person of repute, and I am going to re-open the case, to some extent, with him."
"Yes, I see. I'm sure you're quite respectable. But, after all, that awful woman is dead, and, even if she weren't, she couldn't be tried again for the same crime, could she? Oh, I could have done anything to her! You should have seen her look at me when the jury brought in their verdict! She knew she'd done it, and she knew how she'd done it! And yet they let her off! And I used to dream night after night that poor Tom was calling me, trying to get me to understand something about that terrible house where it happened. But I always woke up just as I was on the point of understanding what he meant."
"That is very interesting indeed," said Mrs. Bradley. "You dreamt that your husband was trying to explain something to you about that haunted house, and you always woke up just as you were on the point of understanding what he meant."
"Why do you look at me like that!" cried Muriel. Mrs. Bradley's bright black eyes began to sparkle.
"I beg your pardon," she said. "I don't think you understand the importance of those dreams, but that doesn't matter now. Tell me this, Mrs. Turney. Would you want people to be convinced, even all these years afterwards, that Bella Foxley was a murderess—if she was one? Or are you willing to leave things as they are?"
"I don't believe Tom fell out of that window, either the first or the second time, and I don't believe the haunted house had anything to do with his death," replied the widow. "But as for Bella Foxley—if I could blacken her name even now that she's dead, I'd do it. It was something she knew, and something Tom knew, too! That's why she killed him. It was the grated carrot, you know. That's what it was. Tom knew. Oh, how I wish we'd never gone! It was the telegram that decided us, although Tom knew better than to expect anything under the will. Poor Aunt Flora! She hadn't very many relations to go and see her! But we weren't well off, you know, and Tom said she might think we thought we'd got expectations, and he wouldn't go anywhere near. We had no expectations of any sort, and didn't want to have any, and he knew what people would think—especially Bella—if they got to hear.
"Well, Bella was there already. She had arrived the day before. She was quite nice,