Page:The Avenger.djvu/18

4 swered, "after a fashion! But you have not explained what your object may be in making use of that key to enter Mr. Barnes' flat. Are you proposing to subject his belongings to the same inspection as mine?" he asked, pointing to his disordered desk.

"My business with Mr. Barnes is no concern of yours!" she exclaimed haughtily.

"Under ordinary circumstances, no!" he admitted. "But these are not ordinary circumstances. Forgive me if I speak plainly. I found you engaged in searching my desk. The presumption is that you wish to do the same thing to Mr. Barnes'."

"And if I do, sir!" she demanded, "what concern is it of yours? How do you know that I have not permission to visit his rooms—that he did not himself give me this key?"

She held it out before him. He glanced at it and back into her face.

"The supposition," he said, "does not commend itself to me."

"Why not?"

He looked at the clock.

"You see," he declared, "that it is within a few minutes of midnight. To be frank with you, you do not seem to me the sort of person likely to visit a bachelor such as Mr. Barnes, in a bachelor flat, at this hour, without some serious object."

She kept silence for several moments. Her bosom was rising and falling quickly, and a brilliant spot of colour was burning in her cheeks. Her head was thrown a little back, she was regarding him with an intentness which he found almost disconcerting. He had an uncomfortable sense that he was in the presence of a