“Hold on, please!” said Clive. “You’re barking industriously, Chief. But you’re barking up the wrong tree. That isn’t the watch I lost.”
“You said it was!” accused the chief. “You said—”
“I said nothing of the sort,” denied Clive. “You asked me if I recognized the watch. And I said I did and that it was mine. I didn’t say it was the one that was stolen to-night. And it isn’t.”
The house guests—to whom the Argyle watch was a familiar object—gasped. Thaxton Vail made as though to speak in quick disclaimer. But Clive’s tired voice droned on as he met Quimby’s suspicious eyes fairly and calmly.
“This watch is mine. It belonged to my father. It was one he had made the year before he died, with the Argyle watch as a model. And a very poor bit of work it was. For it has scarcely a look of the original. Last week at my Rackrent Farm house Mr. Vail dropped his repeater-watch and broke its mainspring. He sent it to New York to be mended. And I lent him this second watch of mine to carry till his own comes back. That’s what I meant just now when I said I recognized the watch and that it is mine.”
“Clive!” sputtered Vail. “You’re—”
“If my brother snatched this watch out of Mr. Vail’s pocket,” finished Clive, heedless of the interruption and with his eyes still holding the chief’s, “then he did a mighty impertinent thing and one for which I apologize, in his name, to my host. That’s all, Chief. The Argyle watch is still missing.”
The stupidly coined lie deceived no one but the police, though Doris Lane felt a throb of admiration for the man who thus sought to shield his friend. The lie helped to blot from her memory Clive’s earlier suspicion of Vail. She gave eager credit to the way wherein he defended the chum in whose guilt he really believed.
Old Miss Gregg reached out a wrinkled hand and patted Creede on the knee much as she might have patted the head of Macduff, the collie.
“You’re a good boy, Clive,” she whispered. “You always were. And, oh, it’s so infinitely better to do good than just to be good! If—”