It looked as if she wanted to keep me from the drawing-room; and it was not difficult to guess that she had been disturbed at her spy work there. It was a bad shot, however; for during the pause there came the murmur of voices in the drawing-room itself.
"You must be wrong, Gretchen. They must have come in without your knowing. I can hear them."
"Oh, no, sir. The door's locked. I have orders always to keep it locked when the Countess is not at home;" and she held up the key in proof and slipped between me and the door.
I started with a great appearance of alarm and pushed past her. "Then there's a thief in the house," I exclaimed.
At that instant there was the sound of some sort of commotion in the drawing-room; a cry of "How dare you?" in Nessa's voice, followed by a sneering laugh, uncommonly like von Erstein's.
CHAPTER XII
"LIKE OLD TIMES"
I snatched the key from Gretchen, who was now very white and shaky, opened the drawing-room door and was going to rush in, when it occurred to me that if Nessa was caught off her guard, she might let out something.
"All right, Gretchen, thank you," I said, loudly enough for Nessa to hear.