“One more point now, Mary, and we have him. Pull yourself together and try to remember his face. He was a young fellow, wasn’t he?—smooth-faced and rather thin, with heavy eyebrows, a straight nose, and a mouth turned down a little at the corners?”
“That’s it—that’s joosht him to the parin’ av a finger nail! ’Deed and ye might be readin’ aff from his photygraph, Misther Brant!”
Brant asked no more questions. Slipping a dollar into the housemaid’s hand, he laid a finger on his lip. “Mum’s the word, Mary, and it will be a favour to me if you will let the thing die out as soon as it will. I know who it was, and it was only a bit of boy’s play, meant to frighten me instead of you. You will help me keep it quiet, won’t you?”
“’Deed and I will, then. It’s a fine gentleman ye are, intirely, Misther Brant; and it’s never an intilligent wurrud will they get out o’ me at all at all forninst the b’y. But joosht to think av the impidence of the young spalpeen!”
Brant thanked her and ran up to his room, where Mrs. Seeley and Antrim were debating what should be done. Mrs. Seeley appealed to the draughtsman.
“What do you think about it, Mr. Brant? I was just asking Mr. Antrim to notify the police on his way downtown, but he thinks we ought first to know what has been taken. Will you look through your things and see if anything is gone?”
Now, in view of the inevitable conclusion, an investigation by the police was not to be thought of. So Brant made his examination perfunctory, missing nothing but the revolver and the bottle of brandy—and not missing the suit of clothes.
“There is nothing gone—nothing of any consequence,” he said. “If I were you, I shouldn’t call in the police. If we had lost anything valuable, it would be different; but as it is, we should gain nothing but a lot of newspaper notoriety, and that would hurt the house. Don’t you think so?”
Mrs. Seeley demurred at first. She did not quite like the idea of having her house broken into, and then to be denied the poor consolation of stirring up the lazy, good-for-nothing police. But when Antrim added his word, she yielded. On the way downtown Antrim asked Brant a single question and no more:
“Tell me one thing, George. Did you give Mrs. Seeley your real reason for wanting to keep the thing quiet?”