“I haven’t the slightest idea.”
“Then I will tell you. They have been found, and they were found under a settee in your boathouse——”
“My boathouse!”
“Yes. And wrapped up in them was the Totem Pole that vanished that same night.”
Mrs. Merivale’s hand shot out and clasped the girl’s trembling fingers.
“It is a plant!” she said, “a deep-laid plot to incriminate this innocent child!”
CHAPTER VIII
ALMA’S STATEMENTS
“That is a possible explanation,” Hart conceded. “But who would do such a thing? Who would hide those ridiculous properties in that strange place, and why?”
“No, it is not a plant,” Alma Remsen said, speaking slowly and seeming to choose her words carefully. “I left the waistcoats in the boathouse myself, when I carried them home day before yesterday.”
“Why did you take them home?” Hart spoke gravely but not unkindly.