"Just what did you tell him?"
"That I believed there was a Hidden Room in the house--and that the
money from the Union Bank might be in it."
Again, for the millionth time, indeed it seemed to her, she reviewed
the circumstances of the crime.
"Could anyone have overheard?" asked Miss Cornelia.
The question had rung in Dale's ears ever since she had come to her
senses after the firing of the shot and seen Fleming's body stark
on the floor of the alcove.
"I don't know," she said. "We were very cautious."
"You don't know where this room is?"
"No, I never saw the print. Upstairs somewhere, for he--"
"Upstairs! Then the thing to do, if we can get that paper from the
Doctor, is to locate the room at once."
Jack Bailey did not recognize the direction where her thoughts were
tending. It seemed terrible to him that anyone should devote a
thought to the money while Dale was still in danger.
"What does the money matter now?" he broke in somewhat irritably.
"We've got to save her!" and his eyes went to Dale.
Miss Cornelia gave him an ineffable look of weary patience.
"The money matters a great deal," she said, sensibly. "Someone was
in this house on the same errand as Richard Fleming. After all,"
she went on with a tinge of irony, "the course of reasoning that
you followed, Mr. Bailey, is not necessarily unique."
She rose.
"Somebody else may have suspected that Courtleigh Fleming robbed
his own bank," she said thoughtfully.
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