“Go on, Ziz.”
“Well, the thing,—the person, I mean, for it was a real, live person all right,—sashayed around a bit, then gave a hollow groan,—I guess that’s what they call hollow,—and slid out. That’s all.”
“You’re a corker, Zizi! Why didn’t you yell?”
“I wanted to see the game. Then, when the pleasant-faced visitor left, I knew it was because I was supposed to have been sufficiently impressed. I thought it over, and I decided that at breakfast, I’d say I hadn’t seen anything, and see who looked self-conscious. And, by jiminy! nobody did! If any one around that table was my visiting spook, he or she carried it off something marvellous! Not one of ’em flickered an eyelash when I said I’d had a sweet, sound sleep all night. I can’t see how any one could be so self-controlled. Now, Penny, could it have been anybody who wasn’t at the breakfast table?”
“Meaning Stebbins or the Thorpes?”
“Oh, no! none of them! But how about some outsider, hired, you know, by somebody in the house.”
“How’d he get in?”
“There’s a secret way into this house. You needn’t tell me there isn’t. Just ‘cause you haven’t stumbled over it yet! Also, who’s doing the hiring?”
“You said everything came around toward Landon.”
“There’s motive there. You see, after Mr. Braye, Mr. Landon inherits all the Bruce fortune, and that’s millions.”