As if in answer to the thought, Nick appeared in the doorway. Chick saw that his chief had sized up the situation at a glance. The girl curtsied to the new arrival and moved off with the robe under her arm. Nick watched her from the doorway as she passed along the hall toward the front of the house.
When she came to the cross hall, directly in front of the room which had been occupied by the dead man, she dropped the robe to the floor. Instead of picking it up at once, she, with a little exclamation of impatience, gave it a push with her foot, which sent it along the floor, not toward the stairs, but to the south, down the hall which ran straight from the head of the stairs to a wing of the house, the upper floor of which was occupied by the servants as sleeping rooms.
Nick stepped quickly forward, but the girl was pushing the robe along with her foot, and the dust on the linoleum was brushed aside, obliterating any marks which might have been there. The detective smiled at the strategy displayed.
The hall down which the girl passed was not a long one, and ended at a door which connected with a hall in the wing. She was, therefore, soon out of sight. As she closed the door Nick saw a disdainful smile on her face.
“That’s a bright girl,” he said, as Chick stepped to his side.
“Mrs. Maynard is covering clues,” said the assistant. “Which shows that she has much to conceal. The girl said she came after a dress, but went away with the nightrobe which discloses the story of the struggle. She was in Charley’s room before she came here. I wonder what she took from there?”
Nick stepped down the hall a few paces and bent to the floor. When he came back he held a shred of cotton in his fingers.
“She took the packing from the casket in which the diamonds were brought here,” he said. “Mrs. Maynard is getting well fast. The robe shows the struggle, and the packing shows her touch. But she came too late.”
Chick drew the little drawer from the dresser and held it out—empty.