"No, sir," said Marie, uncomfortably. "Of course, if that's not early enough, I suppose I could——"
"It's quite early enough," vouchsafed the Master. "There is no complaint about your hours. You always let Lad out as soon as you come into the music room?"
"Yes, sir," she answered, "as soon as I get downstairs. Those were the orders, you remember."
The Master breathed a silent sigh of relief. The maid did not get downstairs until six. The dog, then, could not get out of the house until that hour. If Schwartz had seen any dog in the Romaine barnyard at daybreak, it assuredly was not Lad. Yet, racking his brain, the Master could not recall any other dog in the vicinity that bore even the faintest semblance to his giant collie. And he fell to recalling—from his happy memories of "Bob, Son of Battle"—that "Killers" often travel many miles from home to sate their mania for sheep-slaying.
In any event, it was no concern of his if some distant collie, drawn to the slaughter by the queer "sixth" collie-sense, was killing Romaine's new flock of sheep. Lad was cleared. The maid's very evidently true testimony settled that point.
"Yes, sir," rambled on Marie, beginning to take a faint interest in the examination now that it turned upon Lad whom she loved. "Yes, sir, Laddie always comes out from under his piano the minute he hears my step in the hall outside. And he always comes right up to me and wags that big plume of a tail of his, and falls into step alongside of me and walks over to the front door, right beside me all the way. He knows as much as many a human, that dog does, sir."
Encouraged by the Master's approving nod, the maid ventured to enlarge still further upon the theme.
"It always seems as if he was welcoming me downstairs, like," she resumed, "and glad to see me. I've really missed him quite bad this past few mornings." The approving look on the Master's face gave way to a glare of utter blankness.
"This past few mornings?" he repeated, blitheringly. "What do you mean?"
"Why," she returned, flustered afresh by the quick change in her interlocutor's manner. "Ever since those French windows are left open for the night—same as they always are when the hot weather starts in, you know, sir. Since then, Laddie don't wait for me to let him out. When he wakes up he just goes out himself. He used to do that last year, too, sir. He——"