Edgar continued to surprise me. On our arrival he showed gratification rather than displeasure at encountering the Inspector at the station.
“Here’s luck,” he cheerfully exclaimed. “This will save me a stop at Headquarters. I hear that my cousin has found a key, presumably the one for which we have all been searching. Quenton and myself are here to see if we cannot find a keyhole to fit it. Any objections, Inspector?”
His old manner, but a little over-emphasized. I looked to see if the Inspector noticed this, but he was a man so quiet in his ways that it would take one as astute as himself to read anything from his looks.
Meantime he was saying:
“That’s already been tried. We’ve been all the morning at it. But if you have any new ideas on the subject I am willing to accompany you back to the house.”
The astonishment this caused me was hard to conceal. How could they have made the trial spoken of when the key necessary for it was at that very moment in Edgar’s pocket? But I remembered the last word he had said to me before leaving the train, “If you love me—if you love yourself—above all, if you love Orpha, allow me to run this business in my own way;” and held myself back, willing enough to test his way and see if it were a good one.
“I don’t know as I have any new ideas,” Edgar protested. “I fear I exhausted all my ideas, new and old, before I went to New York. However, if you—” and here he drew the Inspector aside and had a few earnest words with him, while I stood by in a daze.
The end of it all was that we went one way and the Inspector another, with but few more words said and only one look given that conveyed any message and that was to me. It came from the Inspector and conveyed to me the meaning, whether true or false, that he was leaving this matter in my hands.
And Edgar thought it was in his!
One incident more and I will take you with me to Quenton Court. As we, that is, Edgar and myself, turned to go down the street, he remarked in a natural but perfectly casual manner: