The little woman got nimbly off the couch. “After all, it will be a relief to me to get rid of it,” she murmured. “I have always taken care to keep it under lock and key.”
She produced a bunch of about two dozen keys from her pocket, all of them of that common design that will open each other’s locks with ease, and advanced to a chiffonier. “It is in here,” she informed us as she threw back the flimsy door and thrust her head inside.
The next moment we heard a startled cry.
“The bottle is gone!”
CHAPTER XVI
THE RED LIGHT
Sir Frank and I both sprang to our feet to go to the chiffonier. But it was useless to turn over the rubbish it contained. The bottle of upasine was not there. And either the sister of the explorer was a very perfect actress or she was as much surprised as I was by its disappearance.
“Whoever can have taken it?” she cried, gazing at us as if not quite certain that we were beyond suspicion of the theft. “Both my maids have been with me for years, and I have never missed anything before.”
It was at moments like these that I most admired my chief. The encounter with a new perplexity seemed to afford him the keenest pleasure. He was like an angler who finds that he has hooked a trout where he only expected a chub. I could see from the knitting of his brows that he was already readjusting his ideas to this new factor in the case, and working out a different solution.
His first step was to soothe the mistress of the house.
“If you will allow me to help you I think we may be able to get on the track of the thief. Shall we sit down and talk it over quietly?”