Page:The Clue of the Twisted Candle (1916).djvu/254

and I passed through the area door and up the steps and just round the corner I found a taxi-cab, and that is all."

She spread out her hands in a dramatic little gesture.

"And that is all, is it?" said T. X.

"That is all," she repeated; "now what are you going to do?"

T. X. looked up at the ceiling and stroked his chin.

"I suppose that I ought to arrest you. I feel that something is due from me. May I ask if you were sleeping in the bed downstairs?"

"In the lower cellar?" she demanded,—a little pause and then, "Yes, I was sleeping in the cellar downstairs."

There was that interval of hesitation almost between each word.

"What are you going to do?" she asked again.

She was feeling more sure of herself and had suppressed the panic which his sudden appearance had produced in her. He rumpled his hair, a gross imitation, did she but know it, of one of his