“Mrs. Verplanck,” her husband introduced, “Professor Kennedy and his associate, Mr. Jameson—­those detectives we have heard about.  We were discussing the robberies.”

“Oh, yes,” she said, smiling, “my husband has been thinking of forming himself into a vigilance committee.  The local authorities are all at sea.”

I thought there was a trace of something veiled in the remark and fancied, not only then but later, that there was an air of constraint between the couple.

“You have not been robbed yourself?” queried Craig tentatively.

“Indeed we have,” exclaimed Verplanck quickly.  “The other night I was awakened by the noise of some one down here in this very library.  I fired a shot, wild, and shouted, but before I could get down here the intruder had fled through a window, and half rolling down the terraces.  Mrs. Verplanck was awakened by the rumpus and both of us heard a peculiar whirring noise.”

“Like an automobile muffled down,” she put in.

“No,” he asserted vigorously, “more like a powerful motor boat, one with the exhaust under water.”

“Well,” she shrugged, “at any rate, we saw no one.”

“Did the intruder get anything?”

“That’s the lucky part.  He had just opened this safe apparently and begun to ransack it.  This is my private safe.  Mrs. Verplanck has another built into her own room upstairs where she keeps her jewels.”

“It is not a very modern safe, is it?” ventured Kennedy.  “The fellow ripped off the outer casing with what they call a ’can-opener.’”

“No.  I keep it against fire rather than burglars.  But he overlooked a box of valuable heirlooms, some silver with the Verplanck arms.  I think I must have scared him off just in time.  He seized a package in the safe, but it was only some business correspondence.  I don’t relish having lost it, particularly.  It related to a gentlemen’s agreement a number of us had in the recent cotton corner.  I suppose the Government would like to have it.  But—­here’s the point.  If it is so easy to get in and get away, no one in Bluffwood is safe.”

“Why, he robbed the Montgomery Carter place the other night,” remarked Mrs. Verplanck, “and almost got a lot of old Mrs. Carter’s jewels as well as stuff belonging to her son, Montgomery, Junior.  That was the first robbery.  Mr. Carter, that is Junior—­ Monty, everyone calls him—­and his chauffeur almost captured the fellow, but he managed to escape in the woods.”

“In the woods?” repeated Craig.

Mrs. Verplanck nodded.  “But they saved the loot he was about to take.”

“Oh, no one is safe any more,” reiterated Verplanck.  “Carter seems to be the only one who has had a real chance at him, and he was able to get away neatly.”

“But he’s not the only one who got off without a loss,” she put in significantly.  “The last visit—­” Then she paused.

“Where was the last attempt?” asked Kennedy.