"Probably," said Clancy.
"Getting ahead with the work?"
"Checking up the inventory now," said Clancy.
"All right; take your time."
And Miss Henderson hung up.
Once again, Clancy sat upon the stairs. Spofford had distinctly said that one of his men had followed Clancy down to this house. The description that Guernsey had given fitted Spofford exactly.
Spofford, then, not one of his men, had trailed Clancy down here. Why did he lie? Also, he must have known quite clearly who were the occupants of this house. Why had he expressed a certain surprise when Clancy had told him? He had said that, while he had been waiting outside, Garland had come out. But why had Spofford been waiting outside? Why hadn't he come right up and rung the door-bell? Could this delay have been because he knew that Garland was inside the house, and because he did not wish to encounter him? But how could he have known that Garland was inside with Carey? Well, that was easily answered. He might have arrived just as Garland was entering the house.
But there were other puzzling matters. Why had Spofford been so long in recollecting that Don Carey had roused the suspicions of the police because of the office he had maintained in the Heberworth Building? Apparently, it had only occurred to him at the end of his rather long conversation with Clancy.
Hadn't Spofford been a little too ingenuous? Could it be that he had some slight suspicion of Don Carey? As a matter of fact, looking at the matter as dispassionately as she could, hadn't Spofford dropped a strong circumstantial case against Clancy Deane on rather slight cause? Against the evidence of her presence in Beiner's office and her flight from the Napoli, Spofford had pitted his own alleged knowledge of human nature. Because Clancy had delayed flight until Wednesday, Spofford had decided that she was innocent. She didn't believe it.
It had all been convincing when Spofford had said it. But now, in view of the fact that she had detected in his apparent sincerity one untruth, she wondered how many others there might be.