"I think she knows more than she's telling. She's concealing something!" he said with deadly intentness. "The nephew of the president of the Union Bank--shot in his own house the day the bank has failed--that's queer enough--" Now he turned back to Miss Cornelia. "But when the only person present at his murder is the girl who's engaged to the guilty cashier," he continued, watching Miss Cornelia's face as the full force of his words sank into her mind, "I want to know more about it!"
He stopped. His right hand moved idly over the edge of the table--halted beside an ash tray--closed upon something.
Miss Cornelia rose.
"Is that true, Dale?" she said sorrowfully.
Dale nodded. "Yes." She could not trust herself to explain at greater length.
Then Miss Cornelia made one of the most magnificent gestures of her life.
"Well, even if it is--what has that got to do with it?" she said, turning upon Anderson fiercely, all her protective instinct for those whom she loved aroused.
Anderson seemed somewhat impressed by the fierceness of her query. When he went on it was with less harshness in his manner.
"I'm not accusing this girl," he said more gently. "But behind every crime there is a motive. When we've found the motive for this crime, we'll have found the criminal."
Unobserved, Dale's hand instinctively went to her bosom. There it lay--the motive--the precious fragment of blue-print which she had torn from Fleming's grasp but an instant before he was shot down. Once Anderson found it in her possession the case was closed, the evidence against her overwhelming. She could not destroy it--it was the only clue to the Hidden Room and the truth that might clear Jack Bailey. But, somehow, she must hide it--get it out of her hands--before Anderson's third-degree methods broke her down or he insisted on a search of her person. Her eyes roved wildly about the room, looking for a hiding place.
The rain of Anderson's questions began anew.
"What papers did Fleming burn in that grate?" he asked abruptly, turning back to Dale.
"Papers!" she faltered.
"Papers! The ashes are still there."
Miss Cornelia made an unavailing interruption.
"Miss Ogden has said he didn't come into this room."
The detective smiled.
"I hold in my hand proof that he was in this room for some time," he said coldly, displaying the half-burned cigarette he had taken from the ash tray a moment before.
"His cigarette--with his monogram on it." He put the fragment of tobacco and paper carefully away in an envelope and marched over to the fireplace. There he rummaged among the ashes for a moment, like a dog uncovering a bone. He returned to the center of the room with a fragment of blackened blue paper fluttering between his fingers.