“Not if you don’t want me to,” Terry replied.
“Well,” Melissa began, “over at my house I’ve got the prettiest box!”
Terry jumped. The snuffbox! But she mustn’t seem too surprised.
“You have? Tell me about it. I won’t tell your father,” Terry said, smiling confidentially.
“I got it on the houseboat. It was in a little closet on the wall and I broke the door open to see it,” Melissa confessed, now trusting Terry completely.
“But how did you know it was there?” asked Terry.
“The pretty lady told me about it. She gave me a dollar to bring it to her, but after I found it, I liked it so much I couldn’t bear to give it up,” Melissa explained.
“But don’t you know, Melissa, that you shouldn’t take things that belong to other people?” Terry said gently.
“This was only a yellow box, and the lady said it was hers, anyway.”
“It wasn’t, Melissa. It was Dimitri’s, and the lady had no right to it. Where is it now?”