Alan made no comment at once. "Wassaquam believes Mr. Corvet is dead," he said finally. "He told me so. Does your father believe that?"
"I think he is beginning to believe it."
They had reached the little bridge that breaks the Drive and spans the channel through which the motor boats reach harbor in the lagoon; he rested his arms upon the rail of the bridge and looked down into the channel, now frozen. He seemed to her to consider and to decide upon something.
"I've not told any one," he said, now watching her, "how I happened to be out of the house that night. I followed a man who came there to the house. Wassaquam did not know his name. He did not know Mr. Corvet was gone; for he came there to see Mr. Corvet. He was not an ordinary friend of Mr. Corvet's; but he had come there often; Wassaquam did not know why. Wassaquam had sent the man away, and I ran out after him; but I could not find him."
He stopped an instant, studying her. "That was not the first man who came to the house," he went on quickly, as she was about to speak. "I found a man in Mr. Corvet's house the first night that I spent there. Wassaquam was away, you remember, and I was alone in the house."
"A man there in the house?" she repeated.
"He wasn't there when I entered the house—at least I don't think he was. I heard him below, after I had gone up-stairs. I came down then and saw him. He was going through Mr. Corvet's things—not the silver and all that, but through his desks and files and cases. He was looking for something—something which he seemed to want very much; when I interfered, it greatly excited him."
They had turned back from the bridge and were returning along the way that they had come; but now she stopped and looked up at him.
"What happened when you 'interfered'?"
"A queer thing."