"If you are innocent, you had, of course, some reason for acting as you did. Will you explain what it was?"
"No—I cannot explain."
With a look almost of triumph Avery turned to Harriet Santoine, and Eaton felt his flesh grow warm with gratitude again as he saw her meet Avery's look with no appearance of being convinced.
"Mr. Eaton spoke to me about that," she said quietly.
"You mean he told you he was the one who rang the bell?"
"No; he told me we must not attach too much importance to the ringing of the bell in inquiring into the attack on Father."
Avery smiled grimly. "He did, did he? Don't you see that that only shows more surely that he did not want the ringing of the bell investigated because it would lead us to himself? He did not happen to tell you, did he, that the kind and size of socks he wears and carries in his traveling-bag are very nearly the same as the black sock in which the bar was wrapped with which your father was struck?"
"It was you, then, who took the sock from my bag?" Eaton demanded.
"It was the conductor, and I can assure you, Mr. Eaton-Hillward, that we are preserving it very carefully along with the one which was found in the snow."
"But the socks were not exactly the same, were they?" Harriet Santoine asked.