“Doctor Wells,” said Miss Cornelia with what might have been a little crow of triumph in anyone not a Van Gorder.
Anderson looked thoughtful. Then he felt in his pocket for a magnifying glass, failed to find it, muttered, and took the reading glass Miss Cornelia offered him.
“Try this,” she said. “My whole case hangs on my conviction that that print and the one out there on the stair rail are the same.”
He put down the paper and smiled at her ironically. “Your case!” he said. “You don’t really believe you need a detective at all, do you?”
“I will only say that so far your views and mine have failed to coincide. If I am right about that fingerprint, then you may be right about my private opinion.”
And on that he went out, rather grimly, paper and reading glass in hand, to make his comparison.
It was then that Beresford came in, a new and slightly rigid Beresford, and crossed to her at once.
“Miss Van Gorder,” he said, all the flippancy gone from his voice, “may I ask you to make an excuse and call your gardener here?”
Dale started uncontrollably at the ominous words, but Miss Cornelia betrayed no emotion except in the increased rapidity of her knitting.
“The gardener? Certainly, if you’ll touch that bell,” she said pleasantly.