"But you won't be comfortable here," protested Leslie.
"I shall be more than comfortable. That couch is disgraceful luxury compared with what I am accustomed to when camping. May I stay, Doctor?"
Dr. Underwood's grave face relaxed into a sardonic smile.
"Thank you! I was horribly afraid you would refuse. Is this room locked at night?"
"This door opens into a back hall, I noticed. Where does that lead?"
"To the kitchen and back stairs. Also, at the other end, to the side door of the house, opening out into the garden and to a path which runs down to the side street."
"Yet--some one has been able to get into this room without detection. That could only have been at night."
"But why should any one wish to?" protested the doctor uncomfortably.
"The heart is deceitful and wicked. Your faith in human nature does you honor, but I am afraid it has also got you into trouble. However, we'll hope that it may also serve to put an end to the trouble. When we find the man who hid these claptrap stage properties in here, we will find the man who knows something about the robbery. It seems to me a fair guess that he may come back to this room tonight to investigate; but in any event there isn't anything else I can do tonight, and it will flatter my sense of importance to feel that I am trying to do something. Now, if I may, I will assist you to your room, and then say good night."
Leslie, who had been waiting beside her father, rose. "I hope you won't be too uncomfortable," she said.
"My dear," her father interrupted, "I recognize in Mr. Burton the type that would rather be right than comfortable. We are in his hands, and we may as well accept the situation gracefully. The couch isn't a bad one, Burton. I have frequently spent the night here when I have come in late. Yonder door leads to a lavatory. And I hope you may not be disturbed."
Burton laughed. He had all the eagerness of the amateur. "I'm hoping that I may be! Now if you'll lean on my shoulder and pilot the way, I'll take you to your room."
The doctor accepted his assistance with a whimsical recognition of the curiousness of the situation. "That I should be putting myself and my affairs into your hands in this way is probably strange, but more strangely I can't make it seem strange," he said, when Burton left him.