“Precisely. That is what I thought. Now, will you tell us where the other one—the one that is precisely like this one—is located at the present moment, to the best of your knowledge?”
“Why, it is—or at least it should be—in the parlor of the red suite.”
“And who occupies the so-called red suite of rooms?”
“Mr. Dinwiddie.”
“Precisely. Now, I have not been inside the rooms occupied by Mr. Dinwiddie, as you call Jimmy, here, so I will have to ask you if those two vases are, in reality, precisely alike. Has not one of them been broken at some time, and mended?”
“Why, yes, as a matter of fact, one has. That is how I came to have two of them. A gentleman who was staying with us last fall broke one, but he found another like it and sent it to me after I had had the broken one mended.”
“Madam, did it happen that the gentleman referred to was Mr. Dinwiddie?”
“Y-yes, sir. It was Mr. Dinwiddie.”
“And the broken vase—the one that was mended, I mean—is it now in the red suite that has been occupied by Mr. Dinwiddie since last Thursday?”