"Never mind my theory! I'd like to get yours first—when I've given you all I know."
"All right, then! But be quick about it!"
"Easy, Mr. Hunt! It's not as simple as all that. Well, here it is: Somewhere round ten o'clock, a Miss Blake—a magazine-writer livin' on West 10th Street—your ward, I understand——"
"Yes."
"Well, she calls here, alone, and asks for Mrs. Arthur. Mrs. Hunt's personal maid—English; she's no chicken either—she lets her in and says Mrs. Arthur isn't here—see—and didn't the door boy tell her so? Yes, says Miss Blake, but she'll wait for her anyway. The maid—name of Iffley—says she thought that was queer, so she put it to Miss Blake that maybe she'd better ask Mrs. Hunt. Oh, says Miss Blake, I thought she was out, too. But it seems Mrs. Hunt was in her private sittin' room; she'd had a slight bilious attack, and she'd got her corsets off and somethin' loose on, the way women do, and was all set for a good read. So the maid didn't think she could see Miss Blake, but anyhow she took in her card—and Mrs. Hunt decided to see her. That maid Iffley's an intelligent woman; she's all broke up, but she ain't hysterical like the cook—who didn't see nothin' anyway. The parlor maid was havin' her night off, but she's back now, too, and I've got 'em all safe where they can't talk to outsiders, yet. I don't want this thing in the papers to-morrow, not if I can help it; I want to keep it dark till I know better where I'm gettin' off."
"Right!" I approved. "What's the maid's story?"
"Well, I've questioned her pretty close, and I think it's to be relied on. It hits me that way. Mrs. Hunt, she says, when she took in Miss Blake's card, was lyin' on her couch in a long trailin' thing—what ladies call a negligee."
"Yes?"
"And she was cuttin' the pages of some new book with that paper-knife I spoke of."
"Yes?"