"Well, if she were expecting us..."

"Which she never denied."

"And had warned all her people..."

"As she had a perfect right to do."

"It makes her out a liar, in effect," I protested. "I mean, she implied,
if she didn't actually state, that she knew nothing whatever of your
sister's movements."

"Which may have been true," he remarked in the complacent tone of one who
waits to formulate an unimpeachable theory.

"Good Lord! How?" I asked.

"Brenda may have been expected and not have arrived," he explained,
condescending, at last, to point out all the obvious inferences I had
missed. "In which case, my friend, Miss Banks's _suppressio veri_ was, in
my judgment, quite venial. Indeed, she was, if the facts are, as I
suppose, perfectly honest in her surprise. Let us assume that she had
arranged to let Brenda in, at say twelve-thirty, and having her father and
mother under her thumb, had warned them to take no notice if Racquet
started his cursed shindy in the middle of the night. The servant may have
been told that Mr. Arthur might be coming. You will notice, also, that
Miss Banks had not, at one-thirty, gone to bed, although we may infer that
she had undressed. Furthermore, it is a fair assumption that she saw us
coming, and having, by then given up, it may be, any hope of seeing