"All right, my boy," said the big man. "Go ahead. I'm used to all that."
Then Osborne drew the secret agent into the hall.
"I'm glad you've come," said he, his face more serious than it had been all along. "There's a little thing in connection with this case that has me winging. It's all right to put on before them paper fellows out there," with a nod toward the porch, "because it don't do to let the public think the police can be put up a tree. It makes 'em lose confidence, you see."
Ashton-Kirk nodded.
"And then, if the department people show a sign of not being as well up on a subject as they might be," went on the detective, "the press gets onto them and maybe puts in pictures, and all that. The funny fellows, like that Evans, are the worst of all. I make believe I don't mind him, but honest, I'd rather go against a second story worker with the swag on and a gun in his fist, than that same young man."
There was a pause; and Osborne began shooting the heavy bolt of the hall door backward and forward.
"This is the thing that I can't get," he proceeded, after a little; "these bolts and locks and window fasteners. Every one of them was doing business last night. The whole place was tight as it could be. Are you following me?"
"Go on."
"That this young secretary fellow did for Dr. Morse, I'm positive. But whom did he have in with him? Which one of the other three in the house helped him in the job? One of them did, sure; for somebody had to lock the door or window behind him when he left."
"That is a compact little problem in itself," said Ashton-Kirk. "And the solving of it might be of interest. But why devote so much attention to young Warwick? Don't forget that there may be other aspects to the case?"