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138 his flabby jowls had lost their ruddiness and turned a pasty grayish hue.

"You're Peters, butler up at the Meade house?"

"George Peters; yes, sir." His tones quavered.

"Peters, what did you run away for this morning?"

There was a pause, and the butler passed a trembling hand across his face.

"I don't know, sir. I—I've just been wandering around all day. I—that house—I couldn't stand it any longer."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, the two deaths in the family, sir; and then the falling picture, and the men that were sent for to hang it again before any human being could know it was going to fall! I'd have stood by the family through thick and thin; but there are some things no mortal can face." His hands were clenching and unclenching on his plump knees. "When—when a person cannot sit down without having something fall on him, or step on the stairs without being flung to the bottom, to say nothing of what—what had gone before, it's rank suicide to stay in such a house."

Captain Lewis turned to Odell with a gesture of relinquishment, and the latter, took up the interrogation.

"When did you first get the impression that there was something uncanny going on, Peters?"

The butler hesitated.

"Well, sir, when I found poor Mr. Julian's body—"

"No," the detective interrupted bruskly. The moment of hesitation had been too significant. "I mean before that. What was it that first made you think there was something happening which you couldn't understand?"

"How did you know, sir?" Peters's jaw dropped. "I