Alice did not stir; she only turned her head towards the front-room, and pointed to a chair a little drawn away from the window. "In that chair," she said. "It stood as it stands now."
The officer looked baffled. "You must have had the back-room full in view from there; both the door and window."
"Quite so," replied Alice. "If you will sit down in it, you will perceive that I had an uninterrupted view, and faced the doors of both rooms."
"I perceive that from here. And you saw no one enter?"
"No one did enter. It was impossible any one could do so without my observing it. Had either of the doors been only quietly unlatched, I must have both heard and seen."
"And yet the bracelet vanished," interposed Colonel Hope. "They must have been confoundedly deep, whoever did it; but thieves are said to possess sleight of hand."
"They are clever enough, some of them," observed the officer.
"Rascally villains! I should like to know how they accomplished this."
"So should I," significantly returned the officer. "At present it appears to me incomprehensible."
There was a pause; the officer seemed to muse; and Alice, happening to look up, saw his eyes stealthily studying her face. It did not tend to reassure her.