"
She stole a glance at the veiled eyes of the Unknown. He was lying
limply back in his chair, as if the excitement had been too much
for him--and yet she could have sworn she had seen him leap to his
feet, like a man in full possession of his faculties, when she had
given her false cry of alarm.
"Then why did you--" began Dale dazedly, unable to fathom her
aunt's reasons for her trick.
"Because," interrupted Miss Cornelia decidedly, "that money's in
this room. If the man who took it out of the safe got away with
it, why did he come back and hide there?"
Her forefinger jabbed at the hidden chamber wherein the masked
intruder had terrified Dale with threats of instant death.
"He got it out of the safe--and that's as far as he did get with
it," she persisted inexorably. "There's a HAT behind that safe, a
man's felt hat!"
So this was the discovery she had hinted of to Anderson before he
rebuffed her proffer of assistance!
"Oh, I wish he'd take his hat and go home!" groaned Lizzie
inattentive to all but her own fears.
Miss Cornelia did not even bother to rebuke her. She crossed behind
the wicker clothes hamper and picked up something from the floor.
"A half-burned candle," she mused. "Another thing the detective
overlooked."
She stepped back to the center of the room, looking knowingly from
the candle to the Hidden Room and back again.
"Oh, my God--another one!" shrieked Lizzie as the dark shape of a
man appeared suddenly outside the window, as if materialized from
the air.
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