“Oh, confound that combination! I’ve heard it until I’m sick of it! Your niece knew it as well as I—why not suspect her? She was in the house, I was not!”
“Yes, that’s so! Marjy did you take it?” fatuously.
Marjy gave Henry a withering look: “What nonsense!” she cried.
“Well, some one took it!” gloomily iterated auntie, as she continued to lift up books, and flutter open papers.
“You had best have a detective look into the matter,” said Marjy coldly.
“Oh, not for the world! I wouldn’t be so disgraced!” cried auntie excitedly.
“I do not see how you are to ascertain the truth otherwise,” remarked Henry.
“Oh, dear! I wouldn’t care so much for the money—though it’s too much to lose—but to have to suspect those in whom we have placed so much confidence, and one’s very own, is awful!” wailed Aunt Hattie, not very lucidly.
Henry frowned angrily, then Marjy shot him a disdainful glance, and Aunt Hattie glared reproachfully at both.
Henry turned abruptly, lifting his hat in a sudden access of politeness; “I bid you a very good day; if you wish to arrest me, you will find me in my room, two doors away; or in my office on Tremont Street,” saying which he strode angrily away.