“I don’t know,” he said quietly.
Robbins gave him a reproachful glance. “You ought to help us, Carson. Our experiments cost the company much, and we must know whom we can trust. Very well; only you and Blake could get at the plans, and to make the drawings and calculations was your business. Don’t you see you must be frank?”
“The business was mine,” Kit agreed. “When I stopped work I locked the drawings in the cupboard.”
“Sometimes Blake was late at the office. When you were there was he about?”
“Perhaps three or four times,” said Kit. “All the same, he was not at my table; his is across the floor.”
“Was he at your table in the daytime?”
“So far as I remember, not when I was engaged on the boiler drawings. Besides, when the others were at work he could not make notes and copies.”
“I expect you see your clearing Blake implicates yourself?” Colvin remarked.
For a moment or two Kit was quiet. He knew Meredith studied him and Meredith knew Jasper Carson. Colvin was resolved to punish somebody, but he had fixed on Kit only because he thought him the proper man. In fact, Kit imagined all were willing for him to vindicate himself. Well, Blake’s eraser was in his pocket, and when he went to the boiler shop one evening and Tom was at the office he left his drawing-board on the table. When he came back, he heard steps, hurried steps he thought; but he was not going to talk about it. He had stated he did not sell the plans.
“Something like that is evident, sir,” he said to Colvin.