"And can you?" said Ruth, anxiously.
"If we find Miss Van Allen," said Stone, "we can at least see if they are her's."
"Pooh!" said Fibsy contemptuously, "why did'n' youse tell me before that you had the claw prints? I kin get Miss Van Allen's all right, all right!"
"How?" said I, for Fibsy had lapsed into the careless speech that meant business.
"Over to her house. Why, they're all over. I've only gotto photygraph some brushes an' things on her dressin' table to get all the prints you want."
"That's true," agreed Stone. "But it won't give us what we want.
Nobody doubts that Miss Van Allen held the knife that stabbed Mr.
Schuyler, and to prove it would be a certain satisfaction. But what we
want is the woman herself."
It was then that I noticed Ruth's maid, Tibbetts, hovering in the hall outside the library door.
"You may go home, Tibbetts," Ruth said to her, kindly. "These gentlemen will stay late and I'll look after them myself."
Tibbetts went away, and Ruth said, explanatorily, "My maid is a treasure. I'd like to have her live here, but she is devoted to her own little roof tree and I let her off whenever possible."
I knew Tibbets had a home over on Second or Third Avenue, and I thought it kind of Ruth to indulge her in this. But after a change of domicile herself perhaps Ruth would arrange differently for her maid. And, too, as Winnie had often told me of Ruth's cleverness and efficiency in looking after herself and her belongings, I well knew she could get along without a maid whenever necessary.