perfect order on a bar that ran across the closet. Surely, in no other closet did all the dresses face one way. All the left sleeves were toward her. She ran through them quickly. The right sleeves would be more difficult. She would have to burrow. And noiselessly.
Duff was saying, "I wonder if you can describe your father for me, Miss Gertrude? lliat type of man, the aristocratic pioneer, I call him, seems to me to have made a great deal of our history."
"I can see that you are right," agreed Gertrude. "My father was a man of great vigor and ability." Two halves of a buckle clicked as the dresses swayed. Gertrude was rnunediately alert. "Alice . . . ?" she said.
Alice caught her breath. How could she speak from behind Duff, where she shouldn't be? Desperately, she grabbed for the last sleeve to inspect it. She would do her job, anyhow.
Then she took two steps, swiftly, away from the closet. "I thought, perhaps an ash tray," she said.
Duff had a cigarette in his hand, like magic. "I believe I have automatically taken out a cigarette," he said apologetically. "Forgive me, Miss Gertrude? Do you mind smoke?"
"Not at all," said Gertrude graciously. "Alice, dear, you will find an ash tray on the window sill of the bay."
"That green dish?" said Duff.
"A small glass dish," said Gertrude.
"Oh, yes, I have it." Alice brought the dish, which was amber, to Duff, and he reached his hand for it.
"Thank you."
Then her heart jumped. Duff didn't move and he made no sound, but his face contorted with revulsion and horror and surprise. The glass dish in her hand was perfectly clean and empty. She could see that. There was nothing wrong with it. Unless invisible insects wriggled there. Or Duff could see something loathsome under her shaking fingers that were loosening, in spite of her. She nearly dropped it.
Duff's hand went imder the dish. He said, and by a miracle of control, his voice reflected nothing that was in his face, "Do you smoke. Miss Gertrude?"
"Thank you no," said Gertrude. There was no ripple in her. If she could see Duffs face at all, she, too, had
miraculous control not to cry out, "What's the matter?" But she said, "I don't smoke, Mr. Duff. I think, perhaps, because I am blind, you know.''
Duff put the ash tray down on his knee and lit his cigarette. He leaned forward, bringing his face only a few feet from Gertrude Whitlock. "I'm glad you said that," he told her. "One never can be quite sure . . . I've known blind persons who seem offended if their misfortune is mentioned. Why is that. Miss Gertrude? Because they wish to pretend . .. ?"
Gertrude said in her superior way, "I am never offended. After all, to be blind is to be different from people who retain their sight." Her tone came close to suggesting that people often retained their sight through sheer vulgarity. "One can scarcely pretend. There are many difficulties, of course. But I simply resolved that I would not be a burden."
Duffs long face grew roimder in a wide clownish smile. He winked at Alice and made, with his forefinger, the time-honored circular gesture near the head that means "crazy."
Alice knew that if Gertrude could see, she would be driven wild with fury. But Gertrude was not furious. Gertrude went on speaking. "Fortunately," she said, with shrieking modesty, "I am a person of very simple tastes and requirements."
"This is an interesting house," said Duff, dropping his facial monkeyshines and leaning back. "Your father built it?"
"Yes, indeed. We have always lived here, on the hill." Gertrude proceeded to unroll a panoramic view of herself as she saw her. The Whitlocks who lived on the hill, apart, above. The eldest daughter, upon whom the mantle of distinction most surely felL Now a woman of great sensitivity, fine and refined, bearing nobly and even triumphantly her tragic affliction.
Duff said, as if her words had decided him, "Miss Gertrude, I hadn't thought of asking you these questions. But now that I meet you, I feel that you may perhaps be the one best able to answer them for me. I had thought that, because you cannot see, you would not know. But I do believe your perceptions are far more alert and your intelligence more keen . . ." He appeared to stumble. "That is to say, of course, I haven't met your sisters. But. . ."
"What questions do you mean, Mr. Duff?" said Gertrude in a most friendly fashion.
"Well, you see, last night ..."
Gertrude stiffened just a little.
"Young Alice, here, tells me she believes there was an intruder in this house."
"An intruder?" said Gertrude slowly.
"Yes, I do," said Alice truculently. One had to look sharp with this Duff. He gave you a role without warning. Duff's confident smile was sweet praise, though.
"My dear, whatever makes you think . . . ?"
"I had a feeling," Alice said. "I woke up and I felt just as if there was somebody in the hall."
"Where, my dear?"
"In the hall. downstalrs," faltered Alice.
"Your brother is rather concerned about it," Duff put in, "because, of course, that very queer accident with the furnace has made him quite imeasy, and he wonders if someone has a way of getting in here, if you are safe."
"Safe?" said Gertrude. "Of course we are safe. You must have misunderstood Innes, Mr. Duff. I doubt if my half-brother is thinking of our safety."
"Indeed?" murmured Duff.'
"He has less family feeling than you think. I am afraid that he considers us three insignificant old women." She held her head higher, if possible. "That is quite natural, and I do understand it. Why, Mr. Duff, perhaps we are."
Somebody had to say, "Oh, no!" in a shocked voice, and somebody was Alice who found herself reacting as required. Gertrude smiled. "But an intruder, dear . . ."
"My dear Miss Gertrude," said Duff, "you fail to realize that if there is a thief in Ogaunee, this house would attract him." Gertrude seemed pleased. Her long narrow teeth showed in another smile. "Now, I am wondering if your very keen ears might not have noticed something."
Gertrude appeared to cast her mind back. "I retired to this room early. Quite early. Immediately after bidding Innes good night. I remember nothing out of the ordinary. I heard the telephone bell, of course, and Isabel answering it She came in to me, right afterward."
"At what time was this, Miss Gertrude, do you know?"
"I really caimot tell you," said Gertrude. "My own watch is, unfortunately, out of order."
"Your own watch has no crystal," said Duff.
"I read it with my fingers," said Gertrude majestically. "Why do you wish to know the time, Mr. Duff? I believe it was raining. I believe we spoke of the storm."
"Had it been raining long?"
"I am very sensitive to a storm," said Gertrude. "I have learned to disregard them. I have taught myself a certain amount of inattention."
"How wise," Duff murmured. "You see, I was thinking that no intruder could have been moving about the house while your sister was still . . . er . . . downstairs. But you heard nothing then. Or later?"
"Isabel went upstairs to her own room when she left me. I heard nothing after that Nothing at all, that I remember, until people began to shout and bang."
"I wonder if Miss Isabel heard something before she went upstairs."
"She would have told me," said Gertrude a little petulantly.
"Not necessarily," said Duff gently. "I wondered if she did not look in to see if you were all right, not caring to worry you . . ."
"Isabel would find it very difficult to deceive me," said Gertrude haughtily. "If she had been worried about me, I should have known it. She came in because she wanted witch hazel on her ... her injury."
"I don't imderstand," said Duff.
"My sister is rather helpless," said Gertrude. "She had bruised her . . . her limb."
"I don't imderstand," said Duff again, sounding lost in bewilderment.
"I applied the witch hazel," said Gertrude. "I have two hands. She came in with the botde and the cotton, but she finds it very difficult to manage. So often other people have to do the simplest things for Isabel."