"Sent them?" I repeated, and stared at her in amazement, doubting if I had heard aright.
"Yes, sent them," she said again, emphatically. "Why do you suppose they went to the hospital so early the next morning?"
"I supposed they had become suspicious of me."
"Nonsense! What possible reason could they have for becoming suspicious of you. On the contrary, it was because they were not suspicious of you, because they wished to please you, to air your room for you; because, in a word, you asked them to go—they went after the key to those padlocks on the window-shutters. Of course, Martigny had it."
For a moment, I was too nonplused to speak; I could only stare at her. Then I found my tongue.
"Well, I was a fool, wasn't I?" I demanded bitterly. "To think that I shouldn't have foreseen that! I was so worked up over my discovery that night that I couldn't think of anything else. Of course, when they asked for the key, the whole story came out."
"I shouldn't blame myself too severely," laughed Miss Kemball, as she looked at my rueful countenance. "I myself think it's rather fortunate that he's on the boat."
"Fortunate? You don't mean that!"
"Precisely that. Suppose the Jourdains hadn't gone to him; he'd have left the hospital anyway in two or three days—he isn't the man to lie inactive when he knew you were searching for the fugitives. He'd have returned, then, to his apartment next to yours; your landlady would have told him that you had sailed for Europe, and he had only to examine this boat's passenger-list to discover your name. So you see there wasn't so much lost, after all."
"But, at any rate," I pointed out, "he would still have been in America. He couldn't have caught us. We'd have had a good start of him."