"Has Simsbury a daughter? Has there not been a child about the house some time to assist the cook in errands and so on?"
"No, or I should have seen her. Besides, how would the shoes of such a person come into William's room?"
"Easily. Secrecy was required. You were not to be disturbed; so shoes were taken off that quiet might result."
"Was Lucetta shoeless or William or even Mother Jane? You have not told me that you were requested to walk in stocking feet up the hall. No, Mr. Gryce, the shoes were the shoes of a girl. I know it because it was matched by a dress I saw hanging up in a sort of wardrobe."
"Ah! You looked into the wardrobe?"
"I did and felt justified in doing so. It was after I had spied the shoes."
"Very good. And you saw a dress?"
"A little dress; a dress with a short skirt. It was of silk too; another anomaly—and the color, I think, was blue, but I cannot swear to that point. I was in great haste and took the briefest glance. But my brief glances can be trusted, Mr. Gryce. That, I think, you are beginning to know."
"Certainly," said he, "and as proof of it we will now act upon these two premises—that the victim in whose burial I was an innocent partaker was a human being and that this human being was a girl-child who came into the house well dressed. Now where does that lead us? Into a maze, I fear."
"We are accustomed to mazes," I observed.