“Let me answer him please, inspector,” begged Conington Warren. “You told the police that you saw me sitting in my library. Are you prepared to swear to that, Austin?”
“Certainly, sir,” said the man. “You were in the big turkish rocker, smoking one of the cigars you are smoking now and reading the Sporting Times.”
“I’d give a thousand dollars to know who that was!” Warren commented. “It wasn’t I at all. I was dining at Voisin’s at that hour.”
For the first time Austin was acutely disturbed.
“I don’t understand,” he stammered. “It looked like you, sir, it did indeed.”
“And if you’d only gone up like a man and looked in his face you’d have seen the burglar,” McWalsh said scowling.
Austin looked at the speaker coldly.
“It is not my business to suspect my employer of being a crook. If it’s crime to be deceived then I’m guilty. I admit I didn’t look very closely. I was sleepy and wanting to get to bed, but I did notice that whoever it was wore a claret colored velvet smoking jacket.”
“I’ve a list here,” said McWalsh, “given my men by the footman of the people who called at Mr. Warren’s house yesterday. Look it over and see if you can supplement it.”
“There was one other visitor,” Austin said slowly, “an intimate friend of Mr. Warren’s, but I don’t know his name. I didn’t admit him.”