“Easy, officer;––easy! Miss Pederstone is all right,” put in the man with the rifle. “What she says you can bank on.”
“Oh, pshaw!––you don’t have to teach me my business,” retorted the detective.
“Maybe not; but you can stand some teaching in manners,” returned the other.
“See here, sir!” came the quick answer, “if you don’t like this, you had better get down the hill and home. You village mayors give me a pain.”
The man with the rifle bit his lip and remained silent.
“You don’t mind me having a look round, miss?” inquired 17 the officer a little bit less brusquely, but starting in to search without waiting for her permission.
He threw open the cupboards and the closets. He examined every room in the house. He even went into Eileen’s bedroom. She followed him there, carrying the lamp. He looked into her bed and searched under it. He examined her clothes chest.
At last both returned to the kitchen.
The moment she got there, Eileen’s heart stood still. She gave vent to a startled exclamation, which, however, she quickly covered up by stumbling slightly forward as if she had tripped on the rug and almost upset the lamp.
The second officer, who all along had remained silent and simply an onlooker, was seated on the top of the wood box, rapping his heels on the side of it and whistling softly to himself with a look on his face which might have been taken for one of blissful ignorance or secret knowledge, so bland was it.