“Well, Miss Webb,” Hanley began, “you advised me not to be too much impressed by Miss Powell’s statements, so I’ll ask you for a bit of explanation right here.”
“There is nothing to explain,” Henrietta began, calmly; “I deny everything she has asserted. I may have been in my brother’s room during the past week, I may have left some white marks from my shoes on the carpet, but I do not recollect such an occasion, nor do I think it at all pertinent to the matter in hand. As to the matter of the housemaid, that is pure fabrication. I am not in the habit of conniving with servants, as Miss Powell seems to be.”
“Which shoes of yours are so whitened that the marks on the carpet are usual,—and where are the shoes?” Elsie demanded, pointing an accusing finger at Miss Webb.
“I really don’t know,” Henrietta shrugged her shoulders. “You must ask Janet, she looks after my wardrobe.”
“Come, come, Miss Powell,” said Hanley, impressed more by Henrietta’s indifference than by Elsie’s “clue.” “I don’t think you’re adapted to detective work. You overestimate the importance of trifles.”
“Nothing is a trifle if it points the way to discovery,” said Elsie, her brown eyes flashing and her red lips quivering as she looked from one to another for help or sympathy.
And it came, from Fenn Whiting.
“I think, Miss Webb,” he said, a bit shortly, “that you owe us a little information. Doesn’t the maid clean the rooms each morning?”
“Certainly.”
“Then white marks, as of chalked shoes, early in the morning would seem to me to imply that you were there the night before. Why not own up to it? It couldn’t have been on any secret errand?”