Mrs. De Peyster did not attempt an answer to this conjectural dilemma.

“Twin and interdependent pillars of America’s shining morality,” continued Mr. Pyecroft.  “Now, like you, Angelica,” he mused, “I wonder what the detective party is after; what the lofty Lady De Peyster can have been doing that is spicy?  However,” smiling at her, “Angelica, my dear, in the words of the great and good poet, ‘We should worry.’”

It was only a moment later that Matilda burst into the room and closed the door behind her.  She was almost breathless.

“He asked me for the key to”—­“your” almost escaped Matilda—­“to Mrs. De Peyster’s suite.  He’d been particularly ordered to touch up Mrs. De Peyster’s private desk, he said.”

“And you gave him the key?” inquired Mr. Pyecroft, asking the very question that was struggling at Mrs. De Peyster’s lips.

“I told him I didn’t have a key,” said Matilda.

“Oh!” breathed Mrs. De Peyster.

“But,” continued Matilda, “he said it didn’t matter, for he said he’d been brought up a locksmith.  And he picked the lock right before my eyes.”

“That’s one accomplishment of gentlemanliness I was never properly instructed in,” said Mr. Pyecroft regretfully, almost plaintively.  “I never could pick a lock.”

“And where—­is he now?” inquired Mrs. De Peyster.

“In Mrs. De Peyster’s sitting-room, retouching her desk.”

“He’s certainly after something, and after it hot—­and probably something big,” mused Mr. Pyecroft.  “Any idea what it can be, Matilda?”

Matilda had none.

“Any idea, Angelica?”

Mrs. De Peyster was beginning to have an idea, and a terrified idea; but she likewise said she had none.

Mrs. De Peyster wished Mr. Pyecroft would go, so she could give way to her feelings, talk with Matilda.  But Mr. Pyecroft stretched out his legs, settled back, clasped his hands behind his head, and looked thoughtfully at the ceiling.  He had an intellectual interest in some imaginary escapade of the far-distant Mrs. De Peyster; but no more; and he was obviously comfortable where he was.

Matilda started out, but was recalled by a glance of imperative appeal from Mrs. De Peyster.  And so the three sat on in silence for a time, Mrs. De Peyster and Matilda taut with expectant fear, Mr. Pyecroft loungingly unconcerned.

And thus they were still sitting when there was a knock, which Mr. Pyecroft answered.  The cabinet-maker entered.  He wore a slouching, ready-made suit and a celluloid collar with ready-made bow tie snapped by an elastic over his collar-button—­the conventional garb of the artisan who aspires for the air of gentlemanliness while at work.  His face, though fresh-shaven, was dark with the sub-cutaneous stubble of a heavy beard; his eyes were furtive, with that masked gleam of Olympian all-confidence which a detective can never entirely mask.