"What is it now?" interrupted a plaintive and sleepy voice from the doorway. "Another fire?"
Varr wheeled toward the speaker and saw Miss Ocky regarding him with wondering eyes. She had slipped on a vivid negligee, a trophy from some Eastern bazaar, and she made a most attractive picture in the soft, kindly light from the lamp as she stood there looking her inquiry at one and the other of the two men. Simon was somehow glad to see her, for much as he disliked her, he admitted her level-headed shrewdness and welcomed the help of another brain in coping with a situation that was rapidly getting beyond him.
"Some one has broken open my desk and taken the notebook in which I keep memoranda of formulas and experiments," he explained gruffly. "I don't miss anything else. It must have been done within the last few hours."
"I see. I thought I detected a note of tragedy in the way you hollered for Bates just now." She eyed the butler reflectively as she drew a silver case from a pocket of the negligee and lighted a cigarette. "Bates—I see you are still dressed! Where have you been for the past few hours?"
"Right in the pantry, Miss Ocky, except when I came out to let you in a while back. I heard nothing, nor no one."
She turned, as if to measure distances with her eye. "Right in the pantry," she repeated. "Fifteen yards—and two closed doors—away. Still, it's queer you heard nothing."
"I was reading a paper, Miss Ocky, and I dozed once or twice."
"Ah. That probably accounts for it. Have you found out yet how he got into the house?" She moved her shoulders slightly as she put the question. "I can feel a draught on the back of my neck, now. Something is open—in the living-room, perhaps. Did you lock up as carefully as usual this evening, Bates? Things were rather upset!"
"That didn't make any difference, Miss Ocky," he protested eagerly. "I had closed everything as usual—I had even started for bed—before the siren blew and I heard Mr. Varr hurrying out to the garage. Nothing was left unlocked."
At the first mention of the living-room, Simon had secured a small torch from a nearby stand. Together, they trooped through the door leading to the parlor, where he flashed the light on the two sets of tall French windows that gave on to a side veranda. They exclaimed in chorus at the sight of one pair ajar.