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The shadow of an old terror lay on the girl's face, "I was in here alone in the dark," she began slowly--"Then, as I looked at the doorway there, I saw there was somebody there He came in and closed the door I didn't knohat to do, so I slipped in--there, and after a while I kneas coet out Then I ure that you recognized?"

"No Nothing"

"But we knoas the Bat," put in Miss Cornelia The detective laughed sardonically The old duel of opposing theories between the two see on the Bat!" he said, with a little sneer, Miss Cornelia stuck to her guns

"I have every reason to believe that the Bat is in this house," she said

The detective gave another jarring, h "And that he took the Union Bank money out of the safe, I suppose?" he jeered "No, Miss Van Gorder"

He wheeled on the Doctor now

"Ask the Doctor who took the Union Bank money out of that safe!" he thundered "Ask the Doctor who attacked -room, knocked me senseless, and locked me in the billiard room!"

There was an astounded silence The detective added a parting shot to his indictment of the Doctor

"The next time you put handcuffs on a man be sure to take the key out of his vest pocket," he said, biting off the words

Rage and consternation led on the Doctor's countenance--on the faces of the others astonish certainty Only Miss Cornelia clung stubbornly to her original theory

"Perhaps I'm an obstinate old woman," she said in tones which obviously showed that if so she was rather proud of it, "but the Doctor and all the rest of us were locked in the living-rooo!"

"By the Bat, I suppose!" mocked Anderson

"By the Bat!" insisted Miss Cornelia inflexibly "Who else would have fastened a dead bat to the door downstairs? Who else would have the bravado to do that? Or what you call the iination?"

In spite of himself Anderson seeing his tone, "You knew about this hidden room, Wells?" he shot at the Doctor

"Yes" The Doctor bowed his head

"And you knew the , wasn't I?" parried the Doctor "You can look for yourself That safe is empty"

The detective brushed his evasive answer aside

"You were up in this rooht," he said in tones of apparent certainty