Mrs. Hallam looked up at Kirkwood, who bowed silently, struggling to hide both his amusement and perplexity. More than ever, now, the case presented a front inscrutable to his wits; try as he might, he failed to fit an explanation to any incident in which he had figured, while this last development--that his antagonist of the dark stairway had been Mrs. Hallam's son!--seemed the most astounding of all, baffling elucidation completely.
He had abandoned all thought of flight and escape. It was too late; in the brisk idiom of his mother-tongue, he was "caught with the goods on." "May as well face the music," he counseled himself, in resignation. From what he had seen and surmised of Mrs. Hallam, he shrewdly suspected that the tune would prove an exceedingly lively one; she seemed a woman of imagination, originality, and an able-bodied temper.
She rose suddenly. "You will be good enough to explain your presence here," she informed him with dangerous serenity.
"Thanks, awf'ly.... I came here, half an hour ago, looking for a lost purse full--well, not _quite_ full of sovereigns. It was my purse, by the way."
Suspicion glinted like foxfire in the cold green eyes beneath her puckered brows. "I do not understand," she said slowly and in level tones.
"I didn't expect you to," returned Kirkwood; "no more do I.... But, anyway, it must be clear to you that I've done my best for this gentleman here." He paused with an interrogative lift of his eyebrows.
"'This gentleman' is my son, Frederick Hallam.... But you will explain--"
"Pardon me, Mrs. Hallam; I shall explain nothing, at present. Permit me to point out that your position here--like mine--is, to say the least, anomalous." The random stroke told, as he could tell by the instant contraction of her eyes of a cat. "It would be best to defer explanations till a more convenient time--don't you think? Then, if you like, we can chant confidences in an antiphonal chorus. Just now your--er--son is not enjoying himself apparently, and ... the attention of the police had best not be called to this house too often in one night."
His levity seemed to displease and perturb the woman; she turned from him with an impatient movement of her shoulders.