“I am sorry you didn’t use your eyes to better advantage.”
“When you see a thing like that, I reckon you’ll run, too. It ain’t at all likely the window was open, or we would have noticed it. It was all shut up the next mornin’, the same as ever.”
“That was yesterday. I suppose you have not been in the villa since?”
“Lord! no, sir. I wouldn’t go now for a hundred dollars.”
“Have you noticed any thing else peculiar?”
“Yes, sir. There’s been footsteps around the house in the snow.”
“Indeed?” I said, eagerly; “that is more like something. Can I see them now?”
“No, sir; the sun’s melted ’em all off. But if you think they’re the tracks of persons comin’ about the house for any purpose, just tell me, will you, sir, how they happened to be just about the porch, and so on, and not a track to it, nor away from it, in no direction?”
“Indeed, I can not explain it, until I’ve rooted out the mystery from the beginning.”
“Nor it can’t be explained,” cried the housekeeper, triumphantly.