“You never heard, for instance, the rustling of a gown or the sound of a footstep?” the Professor asked. “You could not even say whether your jailer were man or woman?”
Lenora shook her head.
“All that I ever heard was the opening of the door. All that I ever saw was that pair of hands. One night I fancied—but that must have been a dream!”
“You fancied what?” the Professor persisted.
“That I saw a pair of eyes glaring at me,” Lenora replied, “eyes without any human body. I know that I ran round the room, calling out. When I dared to look again, there was nothing there.”
The Professor sighed as he turned away.
“It is evident, I am afraid,” he said, “that Miss Lenora’s evidence will help no one. As an expert in these affairs, Mr. Quest, does it not seem to you that her imprisonment was just a little purposeless? There seems to have been no attempt to harm her in any way whatever, that I can see.”
“Whoever took the risk of abducting her,” Quest pointed out grimly, “did it for a purpose. That purpose would probably have become developed in course of time. However we look at it, Mr. Ashleigh, there was only one man who must have been anxious to get her out of the way, and that man was Craig.”
The Professor’s manner betrayed some excitement.
“Then will you tell me this?” he demanded. “The young lady is confident that she locked Craig up in the coach-house and that the key was on the outside of the door, a fact which would prevent the lock being picked from inside, even if such a thing were possible. The window is small, and up almost in the roof. Will you tell me how Craig escaped from the coach-house in order to carry out this abduction—all within a few minutes, mind, of his having been left there? Will you tell me that, Mr. Sanford Quest?” the Professor concluded, with a note of triumph in his tone.