A couple of hours later he returned with a small suitcase.
“Here are the clothes,” he said. “I wish you’d see what they want, so that I’ll know when I’m likely to get them.”
He laid four pairs of socks on the table—three brown pairs of his own and the grey pair found in the crate. The girl looked them over one by one. French watched her in silence. He was anxious, if possible, to give her no lead.
“There isn’t much wrong with these,” she said, presently. “They don’t want no darning.”
“Oh, but they have been badly mended. You see these grey ones have been done with a different-coloured wool. I thought perhaps you could put that right.”
Miss Johnston laughed scornfully.
“You’re mighty particular, mister, if that darning ain’t good enough for you. I’d just like to know what’s wrong with it.”
“You think it’s all right?” French returned. “If so, I’m satisfied. But what about these underclothes?”
The girl examined the clothes. They were almost new and neatly folded, just as they had come back from the laundry, so that her contemptuous reply was not inexcusable. At all events, it was evident that no suspicion that they were other than her visitor’s had crossed her mind.
French, with his half formed theory of Berlyn’s guilt, would have been surprised if she had answered otherwise. The test, however, had been necessary, and he felt he had not lost time. Mollifying her with a tip, he returned to the hotel.