“I’m glad of that,” she responded, half fretfully, half gratefully, as Mr. Gryce followed her mother into the adjoining room. “I’ve had a bad enough time of it without being blamed for what I didn’t know and didn’t do.”
Mr. Gryce laid little stress upon these words, but much upon the lack of curiosity she showed in the minute and careful examination he now made of her room. There was no stain on the pillow-cover and none on the bureau-spread where she might very naturally have laid the cutter down on first coming into her room. The blade was so polished that it must have been rubbed off somewhere, either purposely or by accident. Where then, since not here? He asked to see her gloves—the ones she had worn the previous night.
“They are the same she is wearing now,” the anxious mother assured him. “Wait, and I will get them for you.”
“No need. Let her hold out her hands in token of amity. I shall soon see.”
They returned to where the girl still sat, wrapped in her cloak, sobbing still, but not so violently.
“Caroline, you may take off your things,” said the mother, drawing the pins from her own hat. “We shall not go to-day.”
The child shot her mother one disappointed look, then proceeded to follow suit. When her hat was off, she began to take off her gloves. As soon as they were on the table, the mother pushed them over to Mr. Gryce. As he looked at them, the girl lifted off her cloak.
“Will—will he tell?” she whispered behind its ample folds into her mother’s ear.
The answer came quickly, but not in the mother’s tones. Mr. Gryce’s ears had lost none of their ancient acuteness.
“I do not see that I should gain much by doing so. The one discovery which would link this find of yours indissolubly with Miss Challoner’s death, I have failed to make. If I am equally unsuccessful below—if I can establish no closer connection there than here between this cutter and the weapon which killed Miss Challoner, I shall have no cause to mention the matter. It will be too extraneous to the case. Do you remember the exact spot where you stooped, Miss Watkins?”