“What do the police say about it?” she demanded.
“So far,” was the somewhat sardonic rejoinder, “the police have been represented by Sergeant May. His opinion is, I think, that it is a mysterious affair.”
“What do you think of it yourself?” she asked him suddenly.
“I think,” he replied, “that the burglar, whoever he was, was after those Chinese manuscripts and nothing else. Therefore I don’t think it was an ordinary sort of burglar at all. I should say not. It was some one who knew what he wanted, and he seems to have got it.”
“I wish I knew the truth about you,” Madame sighed.
He smiled.
“Well,” he said, “I’m a pretty obvious sort of person, aren’t I?”
“No,” she answered. “On the contrary, you puzzle me, you frighten me.”
“Just why, at the present moment?” he asked tolerantly.
“Because,” she confided, her eyes fixed upon his, “I don’t understand what you were doing in the lane out by your gate this morning about a quarter of an hour before the burglary.”