“It will have to be done to-night if at all,” I returned with pardonable prevarication. “There would be but little satisfaction in undertaking it after any communication had been established between its inmates and the world without.”
“Then,” said she, with little or no heed to the latter part of my sentence, “may I ask as a favor that you will make it convenient to go through my room first? I am Mrs. Winchester’s aunt; and I am sure she would not wish me to be kept out of my bed any later than is necessary. My room is small and—”
Poor old lady! it was really cruel. I made haste to relieve her mind.
“There can be no necessity for searching your room—” I began.
But she interrupted me with prompt decision.
“You are mistaken,” said she. “If there is a room in this house which ought to be looked into, it is mine. For the very reason that it is the last one a detective would examine, makes it possibly the very one a thief would choose for the purpose of concealment. I prefer you to go through my room, sir.”
I was astonished and not a little perplexed. The old lady looked so determined it was evident she was not to be trifled with. But I was not ready to explain to her that the threatened search was but a ruse de guerre, which had already produced its desired result; and yet, if I did not do so, how was I to account for a delay that would inconvenience her so materially? I could see but one way out of the difficulty, and that was to make a superficial examination of her room and her effects, after which I would proclaim myself satisfied with my scrutiny, in the hope that she would be so too. I accordingly answered her that I appreciated her position perfectly, and that if she would consent to it, I would go to her apartment at once.
She signified that she would be only too happy; whereupon I immediately led the way up-stairs. She followed me up the two flights, and earnestly pointed out the door of her room. But as I approached it I heard a suspicious sound on the floor below, and looking over the banisters, beheld the lithe and agile figure of Philippa gliding down the stairs to the front door. She was dressed for the street, and had evidently taken advantage of my position to escape from the house.
Instantly a throng of doubts and suspicions passed through my mind. I was the victim of a plot, and the old lady was neither so innocent nor so disinterested as she appeared. When she persuaded me to go up-stairs it was with the direct intention of giving Philippa the opportunity to reach the street unhindered. I knew it even before I noticed how her feeble and panting form filled the narrow passage at the head of the stairs, necessitating some slight rudeness on my part to pass her. But rudeness, even to an aged and decrepit lady, was of small account in an exigency like this. Twenty-five thousand dollars were in all probability slipping from my grasp, to say nothing of my reputation as an astute and not readily deceived detective. And yet, was it now and in this way the diamonds were leaving the house, or had they already been carried away, as I formerly believed, by Mr. Sutton? Either might be true, or, as I had time to think before I was half-way down the first flight, neither might be true. His departure, and now hers, might be equally a ruse to withdraw attention from the house and the real concealer of these valuable gems; and, pausing just one instant in my descent, I looked back at the place where I had left the old lady tottering from the push I had been obliged to give her in my anxiety to pass. She was standing there still, but the look with which she followed me was one of ill-concealed satisfaction, and though she drew back at my first glance, I had time to observe that a smile had crept into the corners of her mouth that augured poorly for the success of any design that I might entertain.
Meanwhile Philippa’s hand was on the knob of the front door, and she would have been out of the house in another instant if she had not stopped to glance at the hat rack, with the deliberate purpose, as I believe, of hindering me in my pursuit by appropriating my hat if it hung there. But fortunately for me I had carried it with me into the reception-room, so her glance as well as her delay was but momentary. Before I was well at the top of the first flight I heard the front door close, and knew I had to decide in a breath, as it were, whether to follow her and so forsake the building and it might be the very gems I was seeking to recover, or to allow her to go her way unhindered, in face of the equal possibility of her bearing them away to some place of safer concealment.