“When you were there, did you notice a yellow sofa pillow out there?”
“In the kitchen? No, I did not!”
“You know the two yellow cushions that belong on the hall sofa?”
“Yes,—I think I know the ones you mean. What about them?”
“We found one of them in the middle of the kitchen floor. Do you think anybody could have put it there purposely?”
“I can’t imagine why any one should!”
“What do you deduce from that?” Lawrence North asked, interestedly, and Claire said:
“Why, that’s what you call a clue, isn’t it? What does it show?”
“It doesn’t show a thing to me,” declared Dunn; “leastways, nothing sensible. Look here, folks,—either there was somebody else in that house at that time besides Betty and her father,—or else there wasn’t. Now if there was, he surely wouldn’t be moving sofa pillows about. And if there wasn’t, then one of those two people moved it. Now, why? I can’t think of any reason, sensible or not, that would make anybody lug a fine handsome sofa cushion out to the kitchen.”
“Was it valuable enough to be worth stealing?” asked North.