"I feel as though this were all a horrible nightmare!" said Miss Fletcher, putting a hand to her head. "There's a policeman in the hall, and they've locked dear Ernie's study!"

"Does it worry you?" asked Neville. "Was there anything there you wished to destroy?"

"That," said Miss Fletcher, "would be most dishonest. Not but what I feel sure Ernie would have preferred it to having strangers poking their noses into his affairs. Of course I wouldn't destroy anything important, but I'm sure there isn't anything. Only you know what men are, dear, even the best of them."

"No, do tell me!"

"Well," said Miss Fletcher, "one shuts one's eyes to That Side of a Man's life, but I'm afraid, Neville, that there have been Women. And some of them, I think - though of course I don't know - not what I call Nice Women."

"Men are funny like that," said Neville dulcetly.

"Yes, dear, and naturally I was very thankful, because at one time I made sure Ernie would get caught."

"Caught?"

"Marriage," explained Miss Fletcher. "That would have been a great blow to me. Only, luckily, he wasn't a very constant man."

Neville looked at her in surprise. She smiled unhappily at him, apparently unaware of having said anything remarkable. She looked the acme of respectability; a plump, faded lady, with wispy grey hair and mild eyes, red-rimmed from crying, and a prim little mouth, innocent of lip-stick.

"I'm now definitely upset," said Neville. "I think I'll go to bed."

She said distressfully: "Oh dear, is it what I've told you? But it's bound to come out, so you had to know sooner or later."

"Not my uncle; my aunt!" said Neville.

"You do say such odd things, dear," she said. "You're overwrought, and no wonder. Ought I to offer that policeman some refreshment?"

He left her engaged in conversation with the officer on duty in the hall, and went up to his own room. After a short interval his aunt tapped on his door, desiring to know whether he felt all right. He called out to her that he was quite all right, but sleepy, and so after exchanging good-nights with him, and promising not to disturb him again, Miss Fletcher went away to her own bedroom in the front of the house.