He paused as if his deductions settled the case so far. He would have resumed in the same vein, if the door had not opened. A lady in a cobwebby gown entered the room. She was of middle age, but had retained her youth with a skill that her sisters of less leisure always envy. Evidently she had not expected to find anyone, yet nothing seemed to disconcert her.
“Mrs. Verplanck,” her husband introduced, “Professor Kennedy and his associate, Mr. Jameson—those detectives we have heard about. We were discussing the robberies.”
“Oh, yes,” she said, smiling, “my husband has been thinking of forming himself into a vigilance committee. The local authorities are all at sea.”
I thought there was a trace of something veiled in the remark and fancied, not only then but later, that there was an air of constraint between the couple.
“You have not been robbed yourself?” queried Craig tentatively.
“Indeed we have,” exclaimed Verplanck quickly. “The other night I was awakened by the noise of some one down here in this very library. I fired a shot, wild, and shouted, but before I could get down here the intruder had fled through a window, and half rolling down the terraces. Mrs. Verplanck was awakened by the rumpus and both of us heard a peculiar whirring noise.”
“Like an automobile muffled down,” she put in.
“No,” he asserted vigorously, “more like a powerful motor boat, one with the exhaust under water.”
“Well,” she shrugged, “at any rate, we saw no one.”
“Did the intruder get anything?”