“Good for you!” he applauded. “Don’t allow any one in the house that you don’t trust, and don’t trust anybody. All are not electricians who wear rubber gloves.”
He refused to explain further, but he got a slip of paper out of his pocketbook and opened it carefully.
“Listen,” he said. “You heard this before and scoffed. In the light of recent developments I want you to read it again. You are a clever woman, Miss Innes. Just as surely as I sit here, there is something in this house that is wanted very anxiously by a number of people. The lines are closing up, Miss Innes.”
The paper was the one he had found among Arnold Armstrong’s effects, and I read it again:
“——by altering the plans for——rooms, may be possible. The best way, in my opinion, would be to——the plan for——in one of the——rooms——chimney.”
“I think I understand,” I said slowly. “Some one is searching for the secret room, and the invaders—”
“And the holes in the plaster—”
“Have been in the progress of his—”
“Or her—investigations.”
“Her?” I asked.