“Now, if you please, I’d like to know what you mean by prowling about here and rummaging my house!”
“Oh, it’s you, is it, Mr. Glenarm? Well, you certainly gave me a bad scare.”
His air was one of relief and his teeth showed pleasantly through his beard.
“It certainly is I. But you haven’t answered my question. What were you doing in my house to-day?”
He smiled again, shaking his head.
“You’re really fooling, Mr. Glenarm. I wasn’t in your house to-day; I never was in it in my life!”
His white teeth gleamed in his light beard; his hat was pushed back from his forehead so that I saw his eyes, and he wore unmistakably the air of a man whose conscience is perfectly clear. I was confident that he lied, but without appealing to Bates I was not prepared to prove it.
“But you can’t deny that you’re on my grounds now, can you?” I had dropped the revolver to my knee, but I raised it again.
“Certainly not, Mr. Glenarm. If you’ll allow me to explain—”
“That’s precisely what I want you to do.”