"In Pauline's trunk," Rosalind repeated after him, quite too dazed in her astonishment to realize the marvels that this queer little man was telling her.
"To be quite accurate," he continued, "I am not altogether sure of what I say. But that is where it should be, in her trunk, and with it you should find a second dagger, or knife, which I am also anxious to obtain, and if you happen to come across a little book, a diary, with a blue morocco cover, I shall be extremely pleased to lay my hand on it."
"How can you possibly know all this?" Rosalind asked, her eyes wide open with wonder now, and forgetful, for the moment, of the pain he had caused her.
"Going up and down in the earth, like Satan, and then sitting and thinking of it," he said, with a quick turn of mordant humor. "But is it a bargain, now? Of course, I could easily pounce upon the girl's trunk myself: but I want the objects to be stolen from her, since I don't wish to have her frightened—not quite yet."
"Do you, then, suspect this girl of having—of being—the guilty hand, Inspector Furneaux?" asked Rosalind, her very soul aghast at the notion.
"I have already intimated to you the person who is open to suspicion," answered Furneaux promptly, "a man, not a woman—though, if you find these objects in the girl's trunk, that may lighten the suspicion against the man."
A gleam appeared one instant in his eyes, and died out as quickly, but this time Rosalind saw it. She pulled a chair close to him and sat down, her fingers clasped tightly over her right knee—eager to serve, to help. But, then, to steal, to pry into a servant's boxes, that was not a nice action. And this Pauline Dessaulx was a girl who had interested her, had shown a singular liking for her.
She mentioned her qualms.
"At the bidding of the police," urged Furneaux—"in the interests of justice—to serve a possibly innocent man, who is also a friend—surely that is something."
"I might have been able to do it yesterday," murmured Rosalind, distraught, "but she is better to-day. I will tell you. For two days the girl has been ill—in a kind of hysteria or nervous collapse—a species of neurosis, I think—altogether abnormal and strange. I—you may as well know—wrote a letter to Mr. Osborne on the day you first came, a little before you came. I gave it her to post—she may have seen the address. Then you appeared. After you were gone, I sent him a telegram, also by Pauline's hand, telling him not to read my letter——"