perfect composure and in a voice that matched the hair and blouse,

"Yes, he is. Will you come in?"

I bowed again and entered the mansion of Mr. Rendall.



VII

AT THE MANSION HOUSE


As I followed the girl through the hall, a man's voice asked,

"Is that O'Brien?"

"No," she said, "it's some one to see you, father."

She showed me into a room and closed the door, and in the course of the
next few minutes I came to one or two pretty obvious conclusions. She was
clearly Mr. Rendall's daughter, and they were equally clearly in the
habit of receiving visits at odd times from Mr. O'Brien; in fact they
evidently concluded it was he, or Miss Rendall herself would scarcely
have opened the door to me. Also, her reply might be taken as implying
that if Mr. O'Brien had been the visitor, it would not have been her
father he had come to see. But whether or no this were the true
interpretation, I so thoroughly disliked and suspected O'Brien that any
suggestion of intimacy was alone enough to make me glad I had started on
the defensive.