Here was an alibi that was an alibi! I was all at sea. Hamilton bowed; the chief coughed worriedly behind his hand. The girl had told me she was an impostor like myself, that her ten of hearts was as dark-stained as my own. I could not make head or tail to it. Mrs. Hyphen-Bonds! She was a law in the land, especially in Blankshire, the larger part of which she owned. What did it all mean? And what was her idea in posing as an impostor?
The door opened again.
"The patrol has come," said the officer who entered.
"Let it wait," growled the chief. "Haggerty has evidently got us all balled up. I don't believe his fashionable thief has materialized at all; just a common crook. Well, he's got him, at any rate, and the gems."
"You have, of course, the general invitation?" said Hamilton.
"Here it is,"—and she passed the engraved card to him.
"I beg a thousand pardons!" said Hamilton humbly. "Everything seems to have gone wrong."
"Will you guarantee this man?" asked the chief of Hamilton, nodding toward me.
"I have said so. Mr. Comstalk is very well known to me. He is a retired army officer, and to my knowledge a man with an income sufficient to put him far beyond want."
"What is your name?" asked the chief of the girl, scowling. It was quite evident he couldn't understand her actions any better than I.