"Very well, then. I shall answer them. In the first place, the wife of Ben Mauprat is ill and has been taken to the hospital. The boy is Ben Mauprat's son. I was here at the request of Ben Mauprat to know if there were not something that I could do for the family in whom I have long been deeply interested. He was endeavoring to escape me because I wished to turn him over to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children to be taken care of. Even if Ben should be released from the position in which he is now placed, he is not a proper guardian for that boy, but the boy did not wish to do as I said. Now, is that satisfactory?"
"And you were demanding obedience to your will at the point of a knife. Was that it, Miss Chandler?" asked Kingsley, coolly ignoring her question.
She glanced down.
In her hand she still held the knife that she had taken from the table, and which, in her excitement, she had forgotten.
Her face became crimson. She could find no answer, and with a short laugh Kingsley turned to Leonie.
"What have you to say?" he demanded.
"Nothing!" she answered. "I deny your right to detain me here, and I command you to release me!"
"Spoken like a true son of Ben Mauprat!" exclaimed Kingsley, ironically. "It may not come amiss for me to remind you, Miss Chandler, nor you, Master Mauprat, that I have never been taken for a fool, and even if I had, there is no reason to believe that I am one. I have never gone prowling round in the dead of night without an object; therefore, following my usual example, I did not come here without one. I know that there is a mystery afloat. I have scented it, and I am determined to fathom it. I do not believe that you two are interested in it alone. I intend to search this house, after I have first made an examination of this boy to see what he has concealed upon his person with which he wished to escape, and which you were determined to prevent at the risk of murder."
He looked from Leonie to Evelyn, and from Evelyn back to Leonie, but neither spoke.
Both were endeavoring to think of some plan of action, and one seemed to be as uninventive as the other.