“Would one believe,” she asked satirically, “that there should be scope here in this forgotten little spot for the brains of a—Mr. Lessingham!”
“Remember that I was sent,” he protested. “The error, if error there be, is not mine.”
“And after all,” Helen reminded them both, “think how easily one may be misled by appearances. You couldn't imagine anything more honest than the faces of the villagers and the fishermen one sees about, yet do you know, Mr. Lessingham, that we were visited by burglars last night?”
“Seriously?” he asked.
“Without a doubt. Of course, Mainsail Haul is an invitation to thieves. They could get in anywhere. Last night they chose the French windows and seem to have made themselves at home in the library.”
“I trust,” Lessingham said, “that they did not take anything of value?”
“They took nothing at all,” Philippa sighed. “That is the humiliating part of it. They evidently didn't like our things.”
“How do you know that you had burglars, if they took nothing away?” Lessingham enquired.
“So practical!” Philippa murmured. “As a matter of fact, I heard some one moving about, and I rang the alarm bell. Mills was downstairs almost directly and we heard some one running down the drive. The French windows were open, a chair was overturned in the library, and a drawer in my husband's desk was wide open.”
“The proof,” Lessingham admitted, “is overwhelming. You were visited by a burglar. Does your husband keep anything of value in his desk?”