'Evidence.' Humphrey was grave now. 'Not quite it. But warm. Very warm.'
'He's really stumbled on something. How perfectly lovely!'
'And he doesn't know it. Sees nothing but the story value of it. But it may be serious. They'd duck him in the lake. They'd drown him.'
'But how lovely if Henry, by one stroke of his pencil, should really puncture the frauds in this smug town.'
'There is something in that,' mused Humphrey.
'Ssh!' From Mildred.
They heard a slow step on the stairs.
A moment, and Henry appeared in the doorway. He stopped short when he saw them. His glasses hung dangling against his shirt front. He was coatless, but plainly didn't know it. His straight brown hair was rumpled up on one side and down in a shock over the farther eye. He was pale, and looked tired about the eyes. He carried more of the manuscript.
He stared at them as if he couldn't quite make them out, or as if not sure he had met them. Then he brushed a hand across his forehead and slowly, rather wanly, smiled.
'I had no idea it was so late,' he said.