“I did,” he admitted. “Unless I am very much mistaken, I can fill in all the missing spaces in that manuscript within an hour. By-the-by, Claire, you didn’t come down again last night after you had gone to bed, did you, or hear anything unusual?”
She shook her head.
“I was much too sleepy. Why?”
He toyed nervously with some bread upon his plate. His eyes sought hers almost furtively.
“Just an idea,” he said. “I left my work for five or ten minutes and walked around the garden. When I came back, my papers were all disturbed.”
“I didn’t stir out of my room after I went upstairs,” she assured him. “Was anything missing? Were there any papers there that mattered?”
“As it happened there were not,” he replied. “If it had been to-night—well, it might have been different, although a manuscript in Chinese, even though translated, as it will be, would be scarcely likely to attract an ordinary thief, would it?”
She moved in her chair a little uneasily.
“I should think not,” she replied. “In any case, if you were only out of the room for a few minutes, who could have entered without your seeing them?”
“Just so,” he agreed. “As you suggest, it might have been fancy, or a breath of wind from outside, or the opening of a door.”