He had nothing to say. She grew very white. “Did you ask for Alice simply to spare me, Mr. Langley?” she asked.
“No, Mrs. Lorraine,” he replied reluctantly, “it was because I hoped she might be able to throw some light upon the matter. It appears almost certain that she knows something about this mystery in our midst. She has been seen more or less about the lane, and—I don’t credit the particular rumor people have patched up, but——”
“And what is that, Mr. Langley?” she broke in breathlessly.
“They think Alice’s father—that Mr. Lorraine is hereabout—that he has been staying in the shop behind the cottage and that his daughter carries him food and visits him daily.”
For a few seconds, Mrs. Lorraine was too dazed to speak. Alice’s strange conduct seemed to accord with this tale, and yet—she rallied her forces. It was impossible.
“Alice hears from her father. She had a letter only a day or two ago,” she declared. But even as she spoke, she realised that that wasn’t valid evidence. She knit her brows, then looked up. “But Mr. Langley, if Mr. Lorraine had escaped, why wouldn’t it have been in the papers?” she demanded. “You say this has been going on over three weeks, and—Mr. Lorraine was—well-known.”
“I said something of the sort to these gentlemen,” he returned. “They claimed that such an escape is often kept secret for a time for strategical reasons. But irrespective of that, there is no doubt that someone has been skulking about the village, and that your shop building has been occupied and probably by that person. But for more than a week everything was quiet. No smoke was seen and no one saw any suspicious person and it was decided that the mysterious stranger had departed. But night before last something happened to arouse suspicion again. The men who came to me declare that the tramp or stranger came back at that time and is still here. They say he is in your shop at this moment. The building is being watched now, and they are only awaiting my return to enter and arrest whomever they may find within.”
He rose. “You know nothing about it, Mrs. Lorraine, but there’s nothing to do but to allow them to proceed?”
The echoes of the thundering knocks had hardly died away ... when Alice Lorraine appeared.