“Just as I was speaking I heard steps on the main driveway and the sound of someone whistling. The whistling kept coming closer every second, and I whispered, ‘Someone’s coming in here. We’d better stand back in those bushes by the house.’ There were some very tall lilacs at the side of the house under the windows, and we tiptoed over and pushed back into them. After a minute or so, we heard someone go up the steps, and then a bell rang inside the house. There wasn’t any sound at all for a minute; then we could hear the steps coming down the porch stairs again, and a moment later heard them on the gravel, and a moment later still they had died away.
“I said, ‘That was a close call—too many people around here entirely. Let’s make it two less.’ We tiptoed out past the cottage to the main road and started back toward the lodge gates, walking along the grass beside the road in order not to make any noise. We were almost back to the gates when Miss Dunne stopped me.”
“Do you know what time it was, Mr. Phipps?”
“I am not sure of the time. I looked at my watch last when it began to get too dark to read—shortly before nine. We did not start for the cottage until a few minutes later, and it is my impression that it must have been between quarter to ten and ten. We had been walking very slowly, but even at that pace it should not take more than twenty minutes.”
“It was dark then?”
“Oh, yes; it had been quite dark for some time, though it was possible to distinguish the outline of objects. It was a very beautiful starlight night.”
“Quite so. What caused Miss Dunne to stop you?”
“She exclaimed suddenly, ‘Oh, good heavens, I haven’t got my lunch box! I must have left it in the bushes by the cottage.’ I said, ‘Perhaps you left it in the summerhouse,’ but she was quite sure that she hadn’t, as she remembered distinctly thinking just before we reached the cottage that it was a nuisance lugging it about. She was very much worried, as it had her initial stenciled on it in rather a distinctive way, and she was afraid that someone that she knew might possibly find it and recognize it, and that if they returned it, her parents might learn that she had been at Orchards that night.”
“Her parents were not aware of this expedition?”
“They were not, sir. They had both gone to New Hampshire to attend the funeral of Mr. Dunne’s mother.”
“Proceed, Mr. Phipps.”
“Miss Dunne seemed so upset over the loss of the box that I finally agreed to go back with her to look for it, though there seemed to me a very slight chance of anyone identifying it, and I did not particularly care to risk arousing anyone who still might be in the cottage. I had a flashlight, however, and we decided to make a hurried search as quietly as possible; so we started back, retracing our steps and keeping a sharp lookout for the box.
“When we got to the dirt cutoff leading to the cottage from the main driveway, we took it and approached as quietly as possible, standing for a moment just at the foot of the steps where the lilac bushes began and listening to see whether we could hear anything within. Miss Dunne said, ‘There’s not a sound, and no light either. I don’t believe there’s a soul around.’
“I said, ‘Someone has closed the windows and pulled down the shades in this front room. It was open when we were here before.’ Sally said, ‘Well, never mind—let’s look quickly and get away from here. I think it’s a horrid place.’ I turned on the flashlight and said, ‘We were much farther back than this.’ She said, ‘Yes; we were beyond these windows. Look! what’s this?’
“Something was glittering in the grass at the side of the steps, and I bent down and picked it up. It was a small object of silver and black enamel. I turned the light on it, and Miss Dunne said, ‘It’s one of those cigarette lighters. Look, there is something written on it. It says, “Elliot from Mimi, Christmas.” ’
“Just then I heard a sound that made me look up. I said, ‘Listen, that’s a car.’ And I no more than had the words out of my mouth when I saw its headlights coming around the corner of the cutoff. I whispered, ‘Stand still—don’t move!’ because I could see that the headlights wouldn’t catch us, as we were standing far back from the road; but Miss Dunne had already pushed back into the shrubbery about the house. I stood stock-still, staring at the car, which had drawn up at the steps. It was a small car—a runabout, I think you call it—”
“Could you identify the make, Mr. Phipps?”
“No, sir; I am not familiar with automobiles. Just a small dark, ordinary-looking car. Two people got out of it—a man and a woman. They stood there for a moment on the steps, and when I saw who they were I came very close to letting out an exclamation of amazement. They went up the steps toward the front door.”
“Were they conversing?”
“Yes, but in low voices. I couldn’t hear anything until he said quite clearly, ‘No, it’s open—that’s queer.’ They went in, and I whispered to Miss Dunne, ‘Do you know who that was? That was Stephen Bellamy, with Mrs. Patrick Ives.’ Just as I spoke I saw a light go on in the hall, and a second or so later it disappeared and one sprang up behind the parlour
