Detective and mystery stories; Love stories; Social secretaries -- Fiction; Young women -- Fiction
From the women left in the house little was to be gathered. This was
unfortunate as the natural supposition was that the burglary had been
committed during the hours when they were alone there. Both, feeling
ill, had retired early, Delia at about half-past eight, going
immediately to bed and quickly falling asleep. Hannah was later; about
nine, she thought. It was very quiet, not a sound, except that after she
got to her room she heard the dogs barking. They made a great row at
first, running down across the lawn, then they quieted, "easing off with
sort of whines and yaps, like it was somebody they knew." She had not
bothered to look out of the window because she thought it was one of the
work people from the neighborhood, making a short cut through the
grounds.
In the matter of the safe all was incomprehensible and mysterious. Five
people in the house knew the combination—Mr. and Mrs. Janney, Dixon and
Isaac and Miss Maitland. Mrs. Janney was as certain of the honesty of
her servants and her Secretary as she was of her own. She rather
resented the detectives’ close questioning of the latter. But Miss
Maitland showed no hesitation or annoyance, replying clearly and
promptly to everything they asked. She kept the house money and some of
her account books in the safe and on the second of the month—five days
before the robbery—had taken out such money as she had there to pay the
working people who did not receive checks. She managed the financial
side of the establishment, she explained, paying the wages and bills and
drawing the checks for Mrs. Janney’s signature.
Questioned about her movements that afternoon, her answers showed the
same intelligent frankness. She had spent the two hours after lunch
altering the dress she was to wear that evening. As it was very warm in
her room she had taken part of it to her study on the ground floor. When
she had finished her work—about four—she had gone for a walk returning
just before the storm. After that she had retired to her room and stayed
there until she came down to go to Mr. Ferguson’s dinner.
The safe and its surroundings were subjected to a minute inspection
which revealed nothing. Neither window had been tampered with, the locks
were intact, the sills unscratched, the floor showed no foot-mark. There
were no traces of finger prints either upon the door or the
metal-clamped boxes in which the jewel cases were kept. The mended chair
was just as Mrs. Janney remembered it, set between the safe and the
window, in the way of any one passing along the hall.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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