“Yes, except for the search at Quarantine; some report had gotten about that there were suspects aboard and we met with a lot of espionage and were severely cross-examined,” he stepped back to the desk and closed the drawer. “I am glad you like René La Montagne,” he said, and she started at the irrelevant remark. “He’s an ‘ace,’ you know, in the French Flying Corps.”
“Yes.” She looked at him, slightly puzzled. “How do you know I like Captain La Montagne?”
“Because you were walking with him.”
She laughed amusedly. “Is my walking with people a sign that I like them?”
“So I have heard—commented,” he said, and his eyes held hers. “I would very much like to do some sight-seeing; will you not take pity and show me Washington?”
Marian’s fingers were playing with the string of coral which she wore about her neck. “It would be the blind leading the blind,” she said, and her voice sounded strained even to her own ears. “Washington is changed in the last few months. Mr. Burnham would prove a better guide than I.”
“Speaking about me?” inquired their host from the doorway of his room and Marian started; she had not heard the door opened. “Why are you two sitting up here?” he demanded querulously, and Maynard, glancing in his direction, noted that Burnham made a detour of the room which prevented his near approach to the chair where the dead man had been found. “The drawing room is much pleasanter,” he remarked, stopping half way across the room. “Suppose we go there.”
Before Marian could rise, the portières were pushed aside and Detective Mitchell stepped inside the library. He looked with quick displeasure from one to the other.
“You were directed, sir,” he said, addressing Burnham, “by the Chief of Police not to use this room until further notice.”
“Tut, tut!” Burnham reddened angrily. “I don’t take instructions in my own house, and I won’t permit my guests to be dictated to. You can go, Mitchell.”