"I suppose — I suppose he couldn't possibly have told Jake to come to the cat-house yesterday, and he couldn't possibly have given him the cat, could he?" said Larry.
"I mean — I know we think Luke didn't do it — but, well, what do you others think?"
For the first time a small doubt about Luke came into the children's minds. He hadn't told them about Jake. And he was a man they would have liked to hear about if he lived with a circus. And after all, Luke had been the only one near the cat-house during the whole of that hour.
"Well, I still don't believe it was Luke or his friend Jake," said Bets stoutly. "So there!"
"Nor do I," said Daisy. "But I wish everything wasn't so dreadfully puzzling."
"We were much better find-outers last time," said Larry gloomily. "Think of the clues and things we found, and all the Suspects we questioned."
"Well," said Pip, "I can tell you this — all the Suspects on our list can be crossed off now. I was only about half an hour in next door, but I found out enough to know that not one of the people on our list could have stolen Dark Queen."
"How do you know?" asked Fatty.
"Well, Lady Candling had quite a big party," said Pip, "and it stands to reason she couldn't leave a big party and go off to steal her own cat in the middle of it. The cook and parlourmaid were very busy all the time during the tea-hour, so that rules them out too. Miss Tremble had to help as well, and I'm sure Lady Candling would have been very suspicious if she'd gone off for ten minutes or so to steal the cat!"
"Go on, Pip," said Fatty. "Where's your list of Suspects, Larry? Let's cross them off one by one."