At the foot of the drive the road described a long, sloping, horseshoe-shaped curve around the lodge.  There were lights there, streaming cheerfully out on to the trees, and from an upper room came wavering shadows, as if some one with a lamp was moving around.  I had come almost silently in my evening slippers, and I had my second collision of the evening on the road just above the house.  I ran full into a man in a long coat, who was standing in the shadow beside the drive, with his back to me, watching the lighted windows.

“What the hell!” he ejaculated furiously, and turned around.  When he saw me, however, he did not wait for any retort on my part.  He faded away—­this is not slang; he did—­he absolutely disappeared in the dusk without my getting more than a glimpse of his face.  I had a vague impression of unfamiliar features and of a sort of cap with a visor.  Then he was gone.

I went to the lodge and rapped.  It required two or three poundings to bring Thomas to the door, and he opened it only an inch or so.

“Where is Warner?” I asked.

“I—­I think he’s in bed, ma’m.”

“Get him up,” I said, “and for goodness’ sake open the door, Thomas.  I’ll wait for Warner.”

“It’s kind o’ close in here, ma’m,” he said, obeying gingerly, and disclosing a cool and comfortable looking interior.  “Perhaps you’d keer to set on the porch an’ rest yo’self.”

It was so evident that Thomas did not want me inside that I went in.

“Tell Warner he is needed in a hurry,” I repeated, and turned into the little sitting-room.  I could hear Thomas going up the stairs, could hear him rouse Warner, and the steps of the chauffeur as he hurriedly dressed.  But my attention was busy with the room below.

On the center-table, open, was a sealskin traveling bag.  It was filled with gold-topped bottles and brushes, and it breathed opulence, luxury, femininity from every inch of surface.  How did it get there?  I was still asking myself the question when Warner came running down the stairs and into the room.  He was completely but somewhat incongruously dressed, and his open, boyish face looked abashed.  He was a country boy, absolutely frank and reliable, of fair education and intelligence—­one of the small army of American youths who turn a natural aptitude for mechanics into the special field of the automobile, and earn good salaries in a congenial occupation.

“What is it, Miss Innes?” he asked anxiously.

“There is some one locked in the laundry,” I replied.  “Mr. Jamieson wants you to help him break the lock.  Warner, whose bag is this?”

He was in the doorway by this time, and he pretended not to hear.

“Warner,” I called, “come back here.  Whose bag is this?”

He stopped then, but he did not turn around.

“It’s—­it belongs to Thomas,” he said, and fled up the drive.

To Thomas!  A London bag with mirrors and cosmetic jars of which Thomas could not even have guessed the use!  However, I put the bag in the back of my mind, which was fast becoming stored with anomalous and apparently irreconcilable facts, and followed Warner to the house.