When Jacqueline had finished Aunt Martha started eagerly to confirm her story about bringing home a green-dragon cup, several weeks before, but the Judge cut her short.
“Get the lacquer box and show us the beads,” he bade.
Jacqueline slipped from Aunt Martha’s lap to obey, and as she left the room heard the Judge asking where the telephone was.
When Jacqueline came down with the box that held the beads, she found the Judge at the wall phone in the kitchen, and Aunt Martha by the table trying hard not to listen, but with her ears pricked up.
“Miss Crevey,” her lips shaped the words for Jacqueline’s comfort. She seemed to guess that Jacqueline might uneasily be thinking of the town constable.
The Judge turned from the telephone at last, with a flicker of a smile.
“Well,” he nodded to Aunt Martha, “Lucretia Crevey was a most unwilling witness, but she did at last confirm as much of the child’s story as pertains to her. And so these are the beads that made the trouble, eh?” He looked at the yellow coil that Jacqueline showed him in the lacquer box which she uncovered. “It might have been very serious trouble for you, little what’s-your-name,” he went on gravely. “You realize that, don’t you?”
Jacqueline nodded, and drew a little nearer to Aunt Martha, who put her arm quickly round her.
“Other articles, besides the string of beads you call your own, are missing from The Chimnies,” the Judge went on, “and you, having taken the beads and disposed of them to the child next door, were naturally suspected of taking them all.”
Jacqueline pressed closer to Aunt Martha’s side. She hadn’t breath enough now even to say “Oh!”