He did not as a rule look at the paper until his breakfast was done. To send her for it now might, later, be used as a chain in the evidence that might even now be forging for him. He affected a luke-warm interest.
“Money mad!” returned Mrs. Kinney, shaking her head. “All money mad. The root of all evil.”
“A robbery was it?”
“It was like this,” Mrs. Kinney responded, strangely gratified that her employer found her recital worth listening to. “There was fifty-thousand dollars in cash in the safe in Mr. Guestwick’s library. He’s a millionaire and lives on Fifth Avenue. It’s a most mysterious case. The butler swears his master rang him up and told him to send all the servants to bed.”
At length Mrs. Kinney recited Briggs’s evidence before the police captain who was hurriedly summoned to the mansion. “They arrested the butler,” said Mrs. Kinney. “Mr. Guestwick says he came from one of those castles in England where dissolute noblemen do nothing but shoot foxes all day and play cards all night. The police theory is that the butler admitted them and then went bed so as to prove an alibi.”
“Mr. Guestwick denies sending any such message?”
“Yes. He was at the Opera.”
Anthony Trent fought down the desire to rush out into the kitchen and take the paper from before Mrs. Kinney’s plate. She had said that Briggs was to have admitted more than one person.
“How many did this suspected butler let in?”