“That’s a relief. Now I may be able to do something. Hetty, you look like a very strong woman, and I, as you see, am very little. Would you mind lifting me up to these shelves? I want to look at them. Not at the books, but at the shelves themselves.”
The wondering woman stooped and raised her to the level of the shelf she had pointed out. Violet peered closely at it and then at the ones just beneath.
“Am I heavy?” she asked; “if not, let me see those on the other side of the door.”
Hetty carried her over.
Violet inspected each shelf as high as a woman of Mrs. Quintard’s stature could reach, and when on her feet again, knelt to inspect the ones below.
“No one has touched or drawn anything from these shelves in twenty-four hours,” she declared. “The small accumulation of dust along their edges has not been disturbed at any point. It was very different with the table-top. That shows very plainly where you had moved things and where you had not.”
“Was that what you were looking for? Well, I never!”
Violet paid no heed; she was thinking and thinking very deeply.
Hetty turned towards her mistress, then quickly back to Violet, whom she seized by the arm.
“What’s the matter with Mrs. Quintard?” she hurriedly asked. “If it were night, I should think that she was in one of her spells.”