atter myself that I mixed my sorrow and my common sense in
just the right proportions. It was different with Moira; she was
genuinely distressed, and made no effort to conceal it. It was the first
time for many years that I had seen her so unaffected, and natural, and
I must say that the sight brought out all that was best in me.

The sergeant took our names and then began a close personal questioning.
He enquired into my past life, asked me how long I had been with Bryce,
and then bluntly demanded to know in what capacity I was staying in the
house.

"Mr. Bryce," I said, "was an old friend of my father's, and naturally
there was always a welcome here for me."

I picked my words carefully, because I was in mortal dread that some
stray remark might put him on to that affair on the beach. I knew that
if he once got wind of that everything was up with us, and our
hastily-built castle of cards would come tumbling to the ground. While I
was thinking of this it struck me all of a heap that there was a chance
of something leaking out about the burglar of the other day. The only
thing I could see was to make a clean breast of it.

"I don't know whether this has got anything to do with the burglary the
other night," I said casually.

"What's that?" the sergeant demanded.

I repeated my remark. "This is the first I've heard of it," the man
said. "Why wasn't it reported before? It's over a week ago, you say."

"About that," I agreed, "but it was reported. Mr. Bryce went down
himself to tell you." And here I looked warningly at Moira. She gave no
sign that she had noticed my glance, but somehow I felt that she quite
understood what was required of her.

"I don't deny he might have come down," the man ran on, "but all the
same no report has reached us."

"That's mighty curious," I said with assumed thoughtfulness. "Now I come
to think of it, it struck me at the time that you people hadn't followed
the matter up. I meant to ask Mr. Bryce about it, but the matter went
clean out of my mind, and it was just this moment that I recollected it.
It does seem a bit of a puzzler."

"If you tell me all that happened, Mr. Carstairs," the sergeant
suggested, "it might help us a bit. There's something very like a motive
in this."

I gave him a rather sketchy account of the night of the burglar's visit,
but, without actually giving a false description of the burglar himself,
I so drew him that he would be difficult to recognise. I was