“You hear her,” Miss Bascom went on, unrelentingly. “Now, Mr. Cray, I’m a bit of a detective myself, and while you’ve been down here talking to Miss Mystery, I’ve been searching her room more carefully, and I’ve found a few more things, of which I should like to tell you.”
Cray was nonplused. His sympathies were all with the poor little girl, who, clinging to the arms of her chair, seemed about to go to pieces, nervously, but was bravely holding on to herself. Yet, if the Bascom woman was telling the truth, he must beware of the “poor little girl.”
“I’m not sure you’re within your rights, Miss Bascom,” he began, but he was interrupted with:
“Rights! Indeed, the rights of this matter are above your jurisdiction! The blood of John Waring calls from the ground! I am the instrument of justice that has been chosen by an over-ruling Providence to discover the criminal. She sits before you! That girl—that mysterious wicked girl is both thief and murderess!”
“Oh, no!” Anita cried, putting up her arm as if to ward off a physical blow.
Then she suddenly became quiet—almost rigid in her composure.
“That is a grave accusation, Miss Bascom,” she said, “you must prove it or retract it.”
Cray stared at the girl in astonishment. Her agonized cry had been human, feminine, natural—but this sudden change to stony calm, to icy hauteur was amazing—and, to his mind, incriminating.
Miss Bascom, however, was in no way daunted.
“Prove it I will!” she said, sternly. “In another drawer, Mr. Cray, I found the rolls of silver coin—exactly one hundred dollars worth—that we have been told were in the desk with the roll of bills. The ruby pin, you know about. And so, these thefts are proved. Now, as to the murder—I admit, it seems impossible that a girl should commit the awful crime—but I do say that I have found the weapon, with which it was done, hidden in Miss Austin’s room.”