“Yes. I led the way in here and then up the covered passage to the laboratory and opened the door. My uncle was sitting exactly as he had been when I looked in before—his back to me and his face to the window—but although he did not turn, it was evident that he was annoyed by my disturbing him, for he growled angrily, ‘What the devil are you coming in here and disturbing me like this for, Jane? Get out and leave me alone.’”
“Hum-m-m!” said Cleek, drawing down his brows and pinching his chin. “Any mirrors in the Round House?”
“Mirrors? No, certainly not, Mr. Headland. Why?”
“Nothing—only that I was wondering, if as you say, he never turned and you never spoke, how in the world he knew that it really was you, that’s all.”
“Oh, I see what you mean,” said Miss Renfrew, knotting up her brows. “It does seem a little peculiar when one looks at it in that way. I never thought of it before. Neither can I explain it, Mr. Headland, any more than to say that I suppose he took it for granted. And, as it happened, he was right. Besides, as you will remember, I had intruded upon him only a short time before.”
“Quite so,” said Cleek. “That’s what makes it appear stranger than ever. Under the circumstances one might have expected him to say not ‘What are you coming in here for,’ but, ‘What are you coming in for again.’ Still, of course, there’s no accounting for little lapses like that. Go on, please—what next?”
“Why, of course I immediately explained what Constable Gorham had said, and why I had looked in. To which he replied, ‘The man’s an ass. Get out!’ Upon which I closed the door, and the constable and I went away at once.”
“Constable there with you during it all, then?”
“Yes, certainly—in the covered passage, just behind me. He saw and heard everything; though, of course, neither of us actually entered the laboratory itself. There was really no necessity when we knew that my uncle was safe and sound, you see.”
“Quite so,” agreed Cleek. “So you shut the door and went away—and then what?”