Again the atmosphere had grown tense. Westenhanger swiftly scanned the girl’s face, and he was distressed to see how haggard she seemed. “She looks just like a trapped animal,” he thought in the first flash. Then some unidentifiable trait in her expression brought a second idea to the fore. “She looks as though she knew she’s in a very tight corner; but she expects to pull out of it somehow in the end. She’s pretty nearly desperate—but not quite.”
Freddie, having drawn general attention to Eileen’s attitude, contented himself with completing his story.
“I looked out of my window for a short time after fixing the blind so that it wouldn’t flap again. After that I went back to bed again and fell asleep almost immediately. I waked up at the usual time.”
He waited for a moment and then added:
“Now if we had Miss Cressage’s story we should have had everybody’s version of the affair.”
Eileen rose to her feet, and they could see that she was trembling, though she kept herself under control. Westenhanger instinctively leaned forward in his chair. If the girl had some trump card in her hand, now was the time to play it. If not, then undoubtedly Freddie Stickney had put her in a bad position. She had left her room at a quarter past twelve. Freddie’s evidence pointed to her coming back again at twenty minutes to three in the morning, and switching on her light as she re-entered her room. What could any girl be doing out of her bed at that time of night, and for two hours at a stretch? And, undoubtedly, from the evidence of Douglas, the Talisman might have disappeared during the time she was moving about the house. No matter where she had been, it looked a bad business; and yet Westenhanger could not help feeling that there must be some explanation.
“That girl’s straight,” he repeated to himself. “She’s over-straight, if anything, by the look of her. And yet she’s got herself into some deadly hole or other.”
Then an idea suddenly flashed into his mind.
“Suppose she’s shielding someone else! I never thought of that! But it would need to be a pretty strong motive that would make her take the thing as she has taken it.”
Before he could follow out this train of thought, Eileen’s voice broke in on his reflections.