“Can they be real?” gasped Merry, amazed.
“Of course they are!” cried the girl. “And I helped smuggle them into the United States. Don’t you see through the trick now? I didn’t know till after it was all over. Before I was a smuggler’s daughter, now I am a smuggler! Do you wonder that I have been afraid? Do you wonder that I have hidden myself away?”
“But Jones——”
“When I realized what I had done, what he had led me to do, I lost no time in packing and hastening from Boston. I took the doll with me, you may be sure, for I knew, as I know now, that its precious contents were purchased with my father’s money and really belong to me.”
“Then you are rich!” exclaimed Merriwell, still fascinated by the glitter of the diamonds.
She wrung her hands.
“No, no!” she cried. “For though these diamonds belong to me, how can I prove it?”
Frank realized all the difficulties of her position and he was somewhat bewildered himself, not finding a ready answer.
“I have brought you here to advise me,” she went on. “You must tell me what to do. I will not give these diamonds up to Jones. Yet I cannot keep them. If I turn them over to the authorities, it is not likely I’ll ever see them again, for am I not the daughter of a smuggler? Who will believe my story?”
Frank sat there in silence for a few moments.