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“But the kitchen is the other side.”

“Indeed! And where is the stable?”

“At the bottom of the garden, away from the road.”

“How are we going to get to it?”

“We can only get to it through the garden, now the back way is closed. I closed it because the village children—-“

“Had not you better shut the door? If any one passed down the road, they would see it was open.”

“It’s as dark as pitch.”

“Yes, but there’s a little light from within. I can see you from outside quite plainly standing in the doorway.”

I led her indoors, and locked and bolted the door.

“What is this room?”

“The houseplace. I have my meals here. I live very primitively. My idea is—-“

“Then your servant may come in at any moment to lay your supper.”

I could not say that she seemed nervous or frightened, but the way she cut me short showed that she was so in reality. I was not offended, for I am the first to make allowance when rudeness is not intentional. I led the way hastily into the parlour.

“She never comes in here,” I said reassuringly, “after she has once brought in the lamp. I am supposed to be working, and must not be disturbed.”

“I’m not fit to come in,” she said.

And in truth she was not. She was caked with mud and dirt from head to foot, an appalling figure in the lamplight. The rain dripped from her hair, her sinister clothing, her whole person. She looked as if she must have hidden in a wet ditch. I gazed horror-struck at my speckless matting and pale Oriental rugs. I had never allowed a child or dog in the house for fear of the matting, except of course my poor Lindo, who had died a few months previously, and whom I had taught to wipe his feet on the mat.

A ghost of a smile twitched her grey mouth.

“Is not that the Times ?” she said. “Spread it out four thick, and lay it on the floor.”

I did so, and she stepped carefully on to it.

“Now,” she said, standing on a great advertisement of a universal history–“now that I am not damaging the furniture, pull yourself together and think. How am I to get to the stable? I can’t stop here.”

She could not indeed. I felt I might be absolutely powerless to get the muddy footprints out of the matting. And no doubt there were some in the houseplace too.

“If I go through the scullery, I may be seen,” she said, the water pattering off her on to the newspaper. “So lucky you take in the Times; it’s printed on such thick paper. Where does that window look out?”

She pointed to the window at the farther end of the room.

“On to the garden.”

“Capital! Then we can get out through it, of course, without going through the scullery.”

I had not thought of that. I opened the window, and she was through it in two cautious strides.

“Now,” she said, looking back at me, “I’m comparatively safe for the moment, and so is the matting. But before we do anything more, get a duster–a person like you is sure to have a duster in a drawer. Just so, there it is. Now wipe up the marks of my muddy feet in the room we first came into as well as this, and then see to the paint of the window. I have probably smirched it. Then roll up the Times tight, and put it in the waste-paper basket.”

She watched me obey her.

“Having obliterated all traces of crime,” she said when I had finished, “suppose we go on to the stable. Let me help you through the window. I will wipe my hands on the grass first. And would not you be wise to put on that little shawl I see on the sofa? It is getting cold.”