"More confessions, Uncle. I haven't even seen her."
Endacott, as he took his place, removed his spectacles for a moment, rubbed his eyes wearily, and then looked across at his niece.
"What have you been doing all day then?" he demanded.
"Mr. Ballaston called for me and I went over to the Cromer Golf Links with him," she confided. "I had a lesson at golf, some lunch, and afterwards we came home through Blakeney."
Her uncle, rather to Claire's surprise, made no comment. The service of dinner appeared to interest him more than usual, and he certainly ate with appetite.
"Railway travelling agrees with me, I think," he remarked. "I feel that I shall enjoy working this evening. After dinner I shall have a pipe on the lawn with my coffee, and then--the half-hour which I have been looking forward to for so long."
"Did you get what you wanted from Mr. Phillpots?" she asked him, with a queer little note of eagerness in her tone.
"I did," he admitted. "Unless I am very much mistaken, I can fill in all the missing spaces in that manuscript within an hour. By-the-by, Claire, you didn't come down again last night after you had gone to bed, did you, or hear anything unusual?"
He toyed nervously with some bread upon his plate. His eyes sought hers almost furtively.
"Just an idea," he said. "I left my work for five or ten minutes and walked around the garden. When I came back, my papers were all disturbed."
"I didn't stir out of my room after I went upstairs," she assured him. "Was anything missing? Were there any papers there that mattered?"
"As it happened there were not," he replied. "If it had been to-night--well, it might have been different, although a manuscript in Chinese, even though translated, as it will be, would be scarcely likely to attract an ordinary thief, would it?"
She moved in her chair a little uneasily.
"I should think not," she replied. "In any case, if you were only out of the room for a few minutes, who could have entered without your seeing them?"
"Just so," he agreed. "As you suggest, it might have been fancy, or a breath of wind from outside, or the opening of a door."
"You mustn't sit up too late to-night," she told him. "You are looking very tired."
"All the work I have to do," he said, "will be finished in an hour. Afterwards I may write a letter while you go in and see your aunt."