“To an extra bath-room,” I said scornfully. “Haven’t you a thumb-print, too?”
“I have,” he said with a smile, “and the print of a foot in a tulip bed, and a number of other things. The oddest part is, Miss Innes, that the thumb-mark is probably yours and the footprint certainly.”
His audacity was the only thing that saved me: his amused smile put me on my mettle, and I ripped out a perfectly good scallop before I answered.
“Why did I step into the tulip bed?” I asked with interest.
“You picked up something,” he said good-humoredly, “which you are going to tell me about later.”
“Am I, indeed?” I was politely curious. “With this remarkable insight of yours, I wish you would tell me where I shall find my four-thousand-dollar motor car.”
“I was just coming to that,” he said. “You will find it about thirty miles away, at Andrews Station, in a blacksmith shop, where it is being repaired.”
I laid down my knitting then and looked at him.
“We are going to exchange information,” he said “I am going to tell you that, when you tell me what you picked up in the tulip bed.”
We looked steadily at each other: it was not an unfriendly stare; we were only measuring weapons. Then he smiled a little and got up.
“With your permission,” he said, “I am going to examine the card-room and the staircase again. You might think over my offer in the meantime.”
He went on through the drawing-room, and I listened to his footsteps growing gradually fainter. I dropped my pretense at knitting and, leaning back, I thought over the last forty-eight hours. Here was I, Rachel Innes, spinster, a granddaughter of old John Innes of Revolutionary days, a D. A. R., a Colonial Dame, mixed up with a vulgar and revolting crime, and even attempting to hoodwink the law! Certainly I had left the straight and narrow way.
I was roused by hearing Mr. Jamieson coming rapidly back through the drawing-room. He stopped at the door.
“Miss Innes,” he said quickly, “will you come with me and light the east corridor? I have fastened somebody in the small room at the head of the card-room stairs.”
“Possibly,” he said quietly, as we hurried together up the stairs. “Some one was lurking on the staircase when I went back. I spoke; instead of an answer, whoever it was turned and ran up. I followed—it was dark—but as I turned the corner at the top a figure darted through this door and closed it. The bolt was on my side, and I pushed it forward. It is a closet, I think.” We were in the upper hall now. “If you will show me the electric switch, Miss Innes, you would better wait in your own room.”