“Oh, that!” and Mrs Malone looked greatly relieved. “They were in their own beds asleep,—both of them. That I can swear to. I thought you meant they’d been dishonest,—stealing something.”
“No, I didn’t,” said Dorcas, frankly. “I really wanted to know just what I asked. Will you forget it,—since you’ve answered me as you have?”
“Yes, indeed, miss,” the woman agreed, her decision influenced perhaps by the bill that was quietly slipped into her not unready hand.
“Well, I must say,” and Bates looked at his companion as they went slowly along the hall to the elevator, “you did stir up a tempest without even a teapot! What’s the big idea?”
“Don’t speak like that, Rick,” Dorcas implored. “Try to see things as I do. Or must I tell you right out that if there’s no chorus girl, no chambermaid, no elevator girl to fasten suspicion on, it is going to be fastened on some one else. Can’t you guess who?”
“That I can’t,” and Bates looked blankly at her. “Do you mean some of Uncle Bin’s English people came over here and did for him?”
“I do not. I mean that there are people who will think,—who are already thinking there’s reason to direct their inquiries toward—toward your aunt.”
Bates stared; “Aunt Letitia?” he said, half understandingly; “she didn’t do it.”
“I don’t think she did!” Dorcas was irritated at his bewilderment. “But I tell you the detectives think so!”
“Oh, Dork, what awful rot! Dear child, you must keep out of this affair. It makes you crazy.”