Mr. Howbridge was evidently somewhat impressed by Hedden’s report. He stared gravely for a minute at his grizzled butler. Then he nodded.
“Take me upstairs and show me which room you mean, Hedden,” he said.
“Yes, sir. This way, sir.”
He led the lawyer toward the nearest stairway. They mounted to the gallery. Then the man led his employer down a passage and turned short into a doorway. The room they entered was really on the other side of the chimney from the big entrance hall.
It was a small, cozy den. Mr. Howbridge looked the place over keenly, scrutinizing the furnishings before he glanced at the open coal grate to which Hedden sought to draw his attention first of all.
“Ah. Yes,” said the lawyer, thoughtfully. “A work-basket. Low rocker. A dressing table. Couch. This, Hedden, was Mrs. Birdsall’s private sitting-room when she was alive. I never saw the house before, but I have heard Birdsall describe it.”
“Yes, sir?”
“Mrs. Birdsall spent a good deal of her time indoors in this room, and the children with her. So he said. And you found live embers in the grate there?”
“Yes, sir,” said the butler, his own eyes big with wonder.
“No other signs of anybody having been here?”