A continued watch of the house at 76 Gayle Street had shown that both Miss Maitland and Price had been there on the Thursday previous and Price on Sunday afternoon. Each had entered with noiseless haste and each had used a latchkey. O'Malley in a search for a room had interviewed the janitor, a grouchy old chap living in the basement; and got a line on all the tenants, none of whom answered to the description of Price or Miss Maitland. Of their visits to the house the man was evidently ignorant, but he supplied some information which showed how they could come and go without his cognizance.
On July the eighth a lady, giving no name, had taken the right hand front room on the top floor for a friend, Miss Agnes Brown, an art student coming from the west but not yet arrived in the city. The lady paid a month's rent in advance, took the key, and said when Miss Brown arrived, the janitor would be informed, but that she might be delayed through illness in her family. This lady, as described by the janitor, was beyond a doubt Esther Maitland.
O'Malley was positive that the man honestly believed the room unused and awaiting its occupant. He had seen no signs of habitation, heard no sound from behind its closed door. Cooking was permitted in the house and it was part of his business to sweep down the halls every morning and empty the pails containing the food refuse which were placed outside the doors. He had seen no pail, no milk bottles, and never at night, when he went up to light the hall gas, had there been a gleam from the transom of Miss Brown's apartment.
The room had been engaged by Esther Maitland the day after the robbery, had been secured for a tenant who had not materialized. She had taken the key herself and had visited the place, as Chapman Price had done. Both had made their exits and entrances so carefully that the janitor had no idea any one had ever been inside the door since the day it was rented.
After I'd heard all this I opened up with what I'd collected. The Chief didn't say much, which is his way when you come in with a new "twist," but Mr. George wouldn't have it, got quite peevish and said my imagination had run away with me.
"Do you think a girl in love with another man would have embroiled herself with Price the way she has?" he snapped out.
"I don't know, Mr. George. I'm not ready to say yet what she's done or hasn't done. No one can deny that things are dead against her. All I'm sure of now is that she is in love with Mr. Ferguson and, that being the case, I don't think she's the kind, guilty or innocent, who'd take up with another man."
"But you can't base a conviction on a moment's pantomime such as you overlooked. The girl was probably angry at Mrs. Price's manner. It can be a deuced disagreeable manner; I've seen it."
"She didn't act like that—it wasn't only anger—it was all sorts of feelings."
He couldn't see it any way but his own and hammered at me.