The lady shook her head.
“It was I who had the iron all the time,” she said, decidedly.
But then the detective noticed that the lady gave him a quick look, and that she then, as if recollecting herself, altered her tone. He instantly decided that she was making up a story for the benefit of her protégée.
“I recollect, now I think of it,” said she, “that I did come very near her with the iron, and that I was afraid I had burned her, though she said it was nothing, and, indeed, I could see nothing.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” said the detective, rising at once. “And now would you be so good as to let me see her and the man Jem Stickels together, at once, before they leave this house?”
“If they are here, you can, certainly,” said Miss Bostal, as she at once left the room and went down the passage toward the kitchen.
In a few minutes, however, she returned with a blank expression.
“I’m sorry to say,” said she, “that they have both left the house. Whether together or no,” she added, with a demure and pinched little smile, “I can’t say.”
The detective took his leave, not in the best of humor.
Jem Stickels was the person to be “got at,” that was certain. But Hemming’s fear was that he had been “got at” already.