It was? Well, it was a beaut! Only Worth Gilbert, standing there giving the proceeding respectability by careful attention and a grave face, brought me down to asking with mild jocularity,
"He did? He did all that? Well, please ma'am, who locked the window after him?"
"He locked the window after himself."
"Oh, say!" I began in exasperation—hadn't I just shown the impractical little creature that those locks couldn't be manipulated from outside?
"Wait. Examine carefully the wooden part of the upper sash, at the lock—again," she urged, but without making any movement to help. "You'll find what we overlooked before; the way he locked the sash from the outside."
I turned to the window and looked where she had said; nothing. I ran my fingers over the painted surface of the wood, outside, opposite the latch, and a queer, chilly feeling went down my spine. I jerked out my knife, opened it and scraped at a tiny inequality.
"There is—is something—" I was beginning, when Worth crowded in at my side and pushed his broad shoulders out the window to get a better view of my operations, then commanded,
"Let me have that knife." He took it from my fingers, dug with its blade, and suddenly from the inside I saw a tiny hole appear in the frame of the sash beside the lock hasp. "Here we are!" He brought his upper half back into the room and held up a wooden plug, painted—dipped in paint—the exact color of the sash. It had concealed a hole; pierced the wood from out to in.
"And she saw that in her trance," I murmured, gaping in amazement at the plug.
I heard her catch her breath, and Worth scowled at me,