I'll trouble
you for the rest of it, if you please!"
CHAPTER TWELVE
"I DIDN'T KILL HIM."
"The rest of it?" queried Dale with a show of bewilderment, silently
thanking her stars that, for the moment at least, the incriminating
fragment had passed out of her possession.
Her reply seemed only to infuriate the detective.
"Don't tell me Fleming started to go out of this house with a blank
scrap of paper in his hand," he threatened. "He didn't start to go
out at all!"
Dale rose. Was Anderson trying a chance shot in the dark--or had
he stumbled upon some fresh evidence against her? She could not
tell from his manner.
"Why do you say that?" she feinted.
"His cap's there on that table," said the detective with crushing
terseness. Dale started. She had not remembered the cap--why
hadn't she burned it, concealed it--as she had concealed the
blue-print? She passed a hand over her forehead wearily.
Miss Cornelia watched her niece.
"It you're keeping anything back, Dale--tell him," she said.
"She's keeping something back all right," he said. "She's told part
of the truth, but not all." He hammered at Dale again. "You and
Fleming located that room by means of a blue-print of the house. He
started--not to go out--but, probably, to go up that staircase.
And he had in his hand the rest of this!" Again he displayed the
blank corner of blue paper.
Dale knew herself cornered at last. The detective's deductions were
too shrewd; do what she would, she could keep him away from the
truth no longer.
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