“I must tell you,” she said. “I see I must. But don't repeat it, unless it is necessary. Detectives have to know things, but they don't have to tell them, do they?”
“We never repeat confidences, Miss Lloyd,” I replied, “except when necessary to further the cause of right and justice.”
“Truly? Is that so?”
She brightened up so much that I began to hope she had only some trifling matter to tell of.
“Well, then,” she went on, “I will tell you, for I know it need not be repeated in the furtherance of justice. I did go down to my uncle's office that night, after Mrs. Pierce had been to my room; and it was I—it must have been I—who dropped those rose petals.”
“And left the bag,” I suggested.
“No,” she said, and her face looked perplexed, but not confused. “No, the bag is not mine, and I did not leave it there. I know nothing of it, absolutely nothing. But I did go to the office at about eleven o'clock. I had a talk with my uncle, and I left him there a half-hour later—alive and well as when I went in.”
“Was your conversation about your engagement?”
“Yes.”
“Was it amicable?”