“Certainly.”
“And the desk itself?”
“I am equally positive that I locked that also.”
“Well, now let us return again to the moment when after the discovery of Orizaba’s death you staggered back against the wall. What did you do next, after that?”
“I finished my dressing with all the haste I could command. I put the cork handle of Cadillac’s needle in my pocket. I locked the casket and put it away again. I locked the desk. I tiptoed around the room with great care, and as far as I was able to do so in my more or less dazed condition, I left things exactly as I supposed they were before I returned there from the banquet. Then I came out of the house silently, hurried to the station, caught the four-ten train for the city, and here I am.”
“Did you suppose that you could cover up the fact that you had returned to the house in company with the man who is now dead?”
“I supposed so at the time I attempted to accomplish it; I know now that such a thing would be impossible. There is the cab driver who took us to the station here in the city; there is the good-natured conductor who knows me, who waked me when we were approaching our station; he has waked me many times in the same manner and he would not forget it. There is the conductor who came down on the four-ten train, who expressed unbounded surprise because I was going to the city so early in the morning. He had never seen me going in that direction at that time of day before, and he even asked me, jokingly, if there was anybody dead at the house, and I, like a fool, replied to him.”
“What did you say?”
“I told him yes; that Orizaba was dead.”
Nick Carter almost laughed, so bright was the smile that suffused his face.