“Not you, my child. It is a matter for police detectives. Even they are, as yet, at fault.”
“Tell me! quick! before Aunt Hannah comes in. You don’t know what a talent I have for guessing. I may throw wonderful light upon it.”
“Yes, a talent for guessing wrong,” he said, smilingly.
She had quite roused him from his abstraction. Laughing at her impatience, he proceeded to give a description of the mysterious robberies that had been discovered in his store within the last few days.
This relation was interrupted by a dozen exclamations on her part.
“Now that is too strange,” she cried, drawing her chair round, so that she directly fronted him. “I don’t wonder you are worried. The thieves must be ever so shrewd. I won’t begin to guess just yet. And such a fool, too! Those silks were very valuable?”
“Yes. They were of superior quality. I don’t think there are any like them in the city.”
“That may help then to find them, if they should be offered for sale.”
In her eagerness she had leaned forward till her face was very near his.
“We have hopes in that direction,” he replied. “But—what—where did you get that?”