"How horribly informal!" I exclaimed. "How do we know anything about Mrs. Archer?"
"It wasn't an occasion for etiquette, Archie. Mrs. Archer was in a desperate state. It seems that her cook spent most of her time with Mrs. Potzenheimer, when we were dining out at restaurants on account of Mrs. Potzenheimer's health. The irony of it all! Her cook was another antiquity, with an aristocratic record. She had come to Mrs. Archer, without references, but had declared she had lived with the Ogden Goelets."
"Go on, Letitia," I said, in a Sherlock Holmes voice.
"And Mrs. Ogden Goelet was in Europe, visiting the Duchess of Roxburghe. And the Duchess of Roxburghe had been very much attached to her, and had been crazy to take her to London. And she was too old to go, and wanted to 'rest her bones' in New York. And she was always ailing, and nothing seemed to do her any good but gin and whisky."
"I guessed it, Letitia," I cried triumphantly; "I guessed it."
"She behaved precisely like Mrs. Potzenheimer. She came from the same intelligence office. She left, at a moment's notice."
"Taking with her a diamond ring, six silver spoons, a gold whisky flask, and a comb with pearls and turquoises," I went on glibly, still in those staccato Sherlock Holmes tones.
"Or valuables to that effect," corrected Letitia.
"Certainly," I assented judicially, "certainly. It is clear, Letitia, that these women must have been in league, and that a carefully planned robbery has been effected."