The Colonel shook his head in a troubled and anxious manner, but Miss Theodora pursed her lips and looked shrewd.
“I have a theory,” she said. And she waited to be asked what the theory was.
Clifford expressed the wished-for curiosity.
“I believe,” she went on, with conviction, “that it is the person who was at the bottom of the mysteries we have been suffering from here lately.”
“Nonsense, my dear,” interrupted her father, quickly, and not without nervousness. “What on earth should such a person want with us? We have nothing in the house worth stealing; and if we had, do you suppose that the person who was so very skillful in getting away and in evading justice, would try to batter our doors in? You are talking nonsense, Theodora.”
But Theodora looked stubborn. Then Clifford made a suggestion.
“If you think that, why don’t you inform the police? They would lay an ambush for this person, and would certainly free you from the annoyance of his visits, in any case.”
To the young man’s surprise, Colonel Bostal’s face assumed an expression of alarm which he tried in vain to hide; but Miss Theodora broke in triumphantly:
“That is just what I tell him, Mr. King, but he won’t hear of it. Perhaps you will be better able to persuade him than I.”
The Colonel, for answer, leaned back in his chair and drew his daughter’s little thin hands round his shoulders.