"Then that was your car in the creek?"
"Well, yes," Roger admitted, after a hesitation. He was evidently weighing every word, afraid of committing himself to anything dangerous.
"I thought you were at Carrie Smith's."
"I was on my way home."
Everybody laughed. It was about a dozen miles to Roger's road home from Carrie's.
"Come on, now, there's a mystery. Own up," said a man's voice. "Where's the beautiful lady? Drowned?"
Luckily no one waited for an answer. They demanded how he had got in, and when he said he had a key they laughed again. Some one told Maisie she might as well confess. If Roger had a key to the house it required explanation.
If ever I heard cold suspicion in a girl's voice, it was in Maisie's when she answered:
"Oh, we're engaged all right, if that's what you mean," she said. "But I think Roger and I——"
They didn't give her a chance to finish, the idiots! They gave three cheers, and then, as nearly as I could make out, they formed a ring and danced round them. They'd been to a picnic somewhere, and as the bridges were down they were there for the night.