Miss Vale sat staring at the speaker dumbly for a space; then she asked in a dry, expressionless way: 

“And do you really think this is what happened?”

Ashton-Kirk shook his head.

“No,” said he.  “I merely mentioned it to show you that it is difficult to be sure of anything in a matter like this until,” with a smile, “you are sure.  It is one of the things that may have happened; but it is also open to question.  A criminal whose crime has been discovered does not ordinarily linger upon the scene.  You had just fled with the terror of the thing fresh upon you.  How did he know but that you might scream it out to everyone you met.”

Again she looked at him mutely.  Then she said: 

“What, then, is your theory of the crime?”

“I have a number of possibilities at this moment,” he said.  “Of course, there is one to which I give the preference; but until a thing is proven beyond question, it is my rule never to outline my theories.”

Before Miss Vale left she had implored him to do all he could to clear the matter up, for her sake and for Morris’s.  “Of course,” she said in conclusion, “I now understand that the entire matter will get into the papers.  It is too late to prevent that.  But it is not too late for you to fix the guilt where it belongs.  And I have every confidence that you will do it.  If I had not,” and her voice quavered pitifully, “I don’t know what I should do.”

“I will do what I can.  Success sometimes comes easily—­sometimes one is forced to fight hard for it.  But rest assured that I will do what I can.”

She was going; he held the library door open for her while the grave-faced Stumph waited in the hall.

“It will, perhaps, be necessary for me to see Mr. Morris sometime during the course of the day,” said Ashton-Kirk, as an afterthought.  “Would it be convenient for you to let him know that I can be seen at six?”

The fear that his soothing words had driven from her eyes, swept back into them; he saw her tremble and steady herself against the door-frame.

“I cannot let him know,” she said.  “I have not seen him since—­since the time I have mentioned.  I have waited, telephoned, sent messages, even gone in person.  But I could not find him.  No one seems to know anything of his whereabouts.”

CHAPTER X

ASHTON-KIRK ASKS QUESTIONS

For some time after Miss Vale had gone, Ashton-Kirk stood at one of the windows and looked down at the sordid, surging, dirty crowd in the street.  The worn horses went dispiritedly up and down; the throaty-voiced men clamored strangely through their beards; children played in the black ooze of the gutters; women bundled in immense knitted garments and with their heads wrapped in shawls, haggled over scatterings of faded, weak looking vegetables.  The vendors grew frantic and eloquent in their combats with these experienced purchasers; their gestures were high, sharp and loaded with protest.