“How things change in the course of a day or so,” I observed. “I was up here

last Wednesday, I remember, walking up and down this same terrace. Ackroyd was

with me—full of spirits. And now—three days later—Ackroyd’s dead, poor fellow,

Mrs. Ferrars’s dead—you knew her, didn’t you? But of course you did.”

 

Blunt nodded his head.

 

“Had you seen her since you’d been down this time?”

 

“Went with Ackroyd to call. Last Tuesday, think it was. Fascinating woman—but

something queer about her. Deep—one would never know what she was up to.”

 

I looked into his steady gray eyes. Nothing there surely. I went on:—

 

“I suppose you’d met her before.”

 

“Last time I was here—she and her husband had just come here to live.” He paused

a minute and then added: “Rum thing, she had changed a lot between then and

now.”

 

“How—changed?” I asked.

 

“Looked ten years older.”