Miss Althorpe, deeply troubled, looked about her as if for guidance. I, who could have given it to her, made no movement to attract her attention to myself, but waited calmly for her own decision in this matter.
"I wish you would let me consult Mr. Stone," she ventured at last. "I think his judgment might help us."
"I had rather take no one into our confidence,—especially no man. He would consider your welfare only and not hers."
I did not consider myself obliged to acknowledge that the work upon which I was engaged could not be shared by one of the male sex without lessening my triumph over Mr. Gryce.
"Mr. Stone is very just," she remarked, "but he might be biased in a matter of this kind. What way do you see out of the difficulty?"
"Only this. To settle at once and unmistakably, whether she is the person who carried certain articles from the house of a friend of mine. If she is, there will be some evidence of the fact visible in her room or on her person. She has not been out, I believe?"
"Not since she came into the house."
"And has remained for the most part in her own apartment?"
"Always, except when I have summoned her to my assistance."
"Then what I want to know I can learn there. But how can I make my investigations without offence?"