"I daresay you have, I'm not a unique specimen in the human family. But I'll tell you what I am just at this juncture—the only one among you that's right." He drew back and gave a vengeful wag of his head at me. "You've all gone off at half-cock—doing your best to ruin a man who's harmless and a girl who's—who's—" he stopped, and wheeled away from me. "Tch—it makes me sick! Hate and anger and jealousy—that's what's at the bottom of it. I can't talk about it any longer—it's too beastly. Good-night!"
He turned on his heel, ran down the steps and over the grass, clearing the terrace wall with a leap. I looked after him, fading into the early night, disturbed and with a sort of cold heaviness in my heart. He was no fool—suppose what he thought was true? Suppose that dear child whom I'd grown to love—but, rubbish! I wouldn't think of it. It was easy to account for the way he felt. Every little movement has a meaning of its own—and the meaning in all his little movements was love. He had it bad, poor chap, out on him like the measles, and while you have to be gentle with the sick you don't pay much attention to what they say.
That was a dreary evening. There being no one but me around they served my dinner in the dining room, and it added to the strain. Some of the food I didn't know whether to eat with a fork or a spoon, so I had to pass up a lot which was hard seeing I was hungry. But when you're born in an east side tenement you feel touchy that way—I wasn't going to be criticized by two corn-fed menials. I'm glad I'm not rich; it's grand all right, but it isn't comfortable.
The next day—Saturday—it rained and I sat round in the hall and my room where I could hear the 'phone and keep an eye on Miss Maitland. All she did was to go for a walk, and in the afternoon stay in her study. We saw each other at meals, our conversation specially edited for Dixon and Isaac.
Sunday was fine weather again and Ferguson came round at twelve. Miss Maitland had gone for another walk and he and I had the hall to ourselves. He'd been in town the day before, seen George Whitney and told him what he thought. When I asked how Mr. George took it, he gave a sarcastic smile and said, "He listened very politely but didn't seem much impressed." He also told me they'd hoped to find the child Friday night in the room at 76 Gayle Street and had been disappointed.
"Of course she wasn't there," and he ended with "it was only wasting valuable time, but there's a proverb about none being so blind as those who won't see."
After that he dropped the subject—I think he wanted to get away from it—and pow-wowing together we worked around to the robbery, which had been side-tracked by the bigger matter. He said it had been in his mind to tell me a curious circumstance that he'd come on the night the jewels were taken and that he thought might be helpful to me. It was about a cigar band that Miss Maitland had found in the woods that evening when he and she had walked home together. Before he was half through I was listening attentive as a cat at a mouse hole, for it was a queer story and had possibilities. After I put some questions and had it all clear, we mulled it over—the way I love to do.
"A man dropped it," I said slowly, my thoughts chasing ahead of my words, "who went through the woods after the storm."
"Exactly—between eight-thirty and ten-thirty. And do you grasp the fact that those were the hours the house was vacated—the logical time to rob it?"
"Yes, I've thought of that often—wondered why they waited."