The girl, with a little puzzled frown on her forehead, withdrew, and almost immediately a heavy step sounded in the library, and Chief-Inspector Sheffield, pushing past the footman, burst unceremoniously into the conservatory. His face was flushed, and his eyes were angrily bright.
"We've been hoaxed, sir!" he cried. "We've been hoaxed!"
Mr. Belford raised a white hand.
"My dear inspector," he said, "be calm, I beg of you! Will you not take a seat and explain this matter to me?"
Sheffield dropped into a chair, but the flow of excited words would not be stayed nor dammed.
"He's tricked us again!" he burst out. "I suspect what he wanted, sir, and I rely on you to give me all the help you can! I know Paul Harley has got hold of evidence that we couldn't get; but a C.I.D. man can't spend a week making love to Lady Mary Evershed's maid——"
"But others are better able to devote that amount of time to my maid, I suppose?"
The interruption startled Mr. Belford out of his habitual calm, and startled the detective into sudden silence.
Lady Mary stood at the door of the conservatory.
"I am sorry to appear as an eavesdropper," she continued; "but, as a matter of fact, I had never left the study!"