"Gentlemen, you really seem to be taking this matter seriously! Why, you two officers in uniform saw me only last night here with my two sisters, and any one in the neighborhood can tell you my sister Matilda has been housekeeper in this house for twenty years."
That tone was most plausible. The two uniformed policemen looked at their superior dubiously.
"Never you mind what they seen last night," the lieutenant commented dryly. "And never you mind about Matilda."
"But you are forgetting that I am Matilda's brother," said Mr. Pyecroft. "Matilda, I am your brother, am I not?"
"Y—yes," testified Matilda, who by the corpulent pressure of four crowded officers was almost being bisected against the edge of the stationary wash-bowl.
"And you, Angelica; I'm your brother, am I not?"
"Yes," breathed Mrs. De Peyster from beneath the bedclothes.
Mr. Pyecroft turned in polite triumph to the lieutenant.
"There, now, you see."
"But, I don't see," returned that officer. "I know you're Thomas Preston. Jim, just slip the nippers on him. And there's something queer about these women. Just slip the bracelets on Matilda, too, and carry downstairs the party in bed. We'll call the police ambulance for her, and take the whole bunch over to the station."