"I thank you, Lord Arrowood, for this mark of confidence; but you have led me a hot chase through this house, and it is clear that you have something tucked under your coat that you have seized feloniously. We're standing here in the light, and our voices may at any moment attract Miss Hollister and the others in the library. Open your coat! I declare that even if you have lifted a bit of the Hollister plate I will let you go. My lord, if you please, stand and unfold yourself!"
Reluctantly, shamefacedly, and still breathing hard from his late exertions, Lord Arrowood of Arrowood, Hants, England, obeyed me. There were five buttons to the close-fitting jacket, and the loosening of every succeeding one seemed to give him pain. Then with his head slightly lifted as though in disdain of me, he held out for my observation a pie, in the pan in which it had been baked! The top crust was browned to a nicety; its edges were crimped neatly; and in spite of the fact that I had so lately dined sumptuously at Miss Hollister's hospitable board, at sight of this alluring pastry I experienced the sharp twinges of aroused appetite.
He held out for my observation a pie.
"Now you have it, and I hope you are satisfied," said Lord Arrowood. "Kindly allow me to retire by the way I came."
"First," I replied, sobered by the gravity of his manner, "it would interest me as a student of character to know just what species of pie lured you to this burglarious deed."
"I have reason to think," he answered, with tears in his eyes, "that it is a gooseberry. I was damned hungry, if you must know the truth, and having sampled the old lady's pies this morning, and had nothing to eat since, I saw the coal-hole open and ladder beneath, and the rest of it was easy. If you and the other chap had n't chased me all over the estate, I 'd have been off with my pie and no harm done. The old lady 's insane, you know, and has no manner of use for pies. The house is haunted in the bargain. When you had about winded me down in the cellar and cut me off from the ladder and chased me up here, the ghost took a hand, and if you had n't tripped me and sat on me the spirits would certainly have nailed me. O Lord, what a night!"
"It's your impression then that when you got up here somebody else broke into the game."
"Quite that, only I should say something, not somebody. It was a lighter step than yours. It had its hand on me once; but I could n't touch it. Damn me," he concluded hoarsely, "it was n't there to touch!"