I am; he would not be called upon to snub me as a possible confidence man.”

“That rankles yet, Bertie?”

He made a grimace and nodded.

“But,” he insisted, “isn’t it so? If he is up to some mischief, any mischief—doesn’t care to have his kin meet him—that is the way he would act, don’t you think?”

“He might be up to mischief, yet have no designs on his kin.”

[113]“He might,” said the colonel musingly. A thought which he did not confide to the shrewd old woman had just flipped his mind. But he went on with his plea.

[113]

“He avoids you; he avoids me. He is seen going into Keatcham’s drawing-room; that means some sort of an acquaintance with Keatcham, enough to talk to him, anyway. How much, I can’t say. Then comes the attack by the robbers; he is in another car, so there is no call for him to do anything; there is no light whatever on whether he had anything to do with the robbery.

“Then we come here. Keatcham has the room next but one. Archie goes into his own room; we see him go; I am outside, directly outside; it is simply impossible for him to go out into the hall without my seeing him; besides, I found the doors outside all locked except the one to the right where we entered your suite; then we may assume that he could not go out. He could not climb out of locked windows on the third floor down a sheer descent of some forty or fifty feet. Your last room to the right, Miss Smith’s bedroom, is a corner room; besides, she was in it; that excludes every exit except that to the left. We find Mrs. Wigglesworth was absent, and there were evidences[114] of—an—an attack of some kind carefully hidden, afterward. But there is no sign of the boy. I watch the rooms. If he is hidden somewhere in Keatcham’s rooms, the chances are, after Keatcham goes, they will try to take him off. I don’t think it probable that Keatcham knows anything about the kidnapping; in fact, it is wildly improbable. Well, Keatcham goes; immediately I get into the room. The valet and the young man visiting Keatcham, young Arnold, let me in without the slightest demur. Either they know nothing of the boy or somehow they have got him away, else they would not let me in so easily. Maybe they are ignorant and the boy is gone, both. We go to the rooms very soon after; there is not the smallest trace of Archie.”

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