“Mr. Argyll has been robbed of a sum of money.”
An inexplicable expression flashed into his face and passed off; it went as soon as it came.
“So he informed me, just before we started. He says that you will put the police on the track of it—that possibly the five-hundred dollar bill will be identified. It was taken from his desk, it appears.”
“Yes; I wonder what will happen next.”
“Ay! I wonder what will.”
“Who knows what a narrow escape you may have had,” said I. “It is well that you came here in broad daylight; else, like poor Henry, you might have fallen a victim to a blow in the dark. Mr. Argyll thinks you must have been followed from the city by some professional burglar.”
“He thinks so?” he asked, while the shadow of a smile just showed a second in the mirror of his eyes; it was as if there was a smile in his heart, and a reflection from its invisible self fell athwart his eyes; but he turned them away immediately.
“It’s queer,” he resumed; “horribly queer; don’t you think so? I saw that money in the desk Friday evening. Uncle asked me to hold the lamp a moment, while he found some papers, and I noticed the roll of bills lying in his cash-drawer, just as I had given them to him. It must have been abstracted Saturday or Sunday—it’s queer—confoundedly so! There must be some great villain lurking in our midst!”—this last sentence he uttered with an emphasis, looking me through with his black eyes.
There was suspicion in his gaze, and my own fell before it. Innocence itself will blush if obliged to confront the insult of accusation. I had had many wild, and doubtless many wrong and suspicious thoughts about various persons, since the discovery of the murder; and this was turning the tables on me rather suddenly. It never occurred to me that among the dozens upon whom vague and flying suspicions might alight, might be myself.
“There is an awful mystery somewhere,” I stammered.