“Yes, I suppose so—if your mother is willing.” But his consent was rather reluctant; Mary Louise sensed his distrust of the orphan.
“Daddy, do you think Elsie is guilty?” she asked immediately.
“I don’t know what to think. You believe that your intruder was a woman, don’t you? Then, if it was a woman in Miss Grant’s family, how many possible suspects have you?”
Mary Louise checked them off on her fingers. “Old Mrs. Grant, Mrs. Pearson, Corinne Pearson—and Elsie.”
“Which are most likely to have heard about the necklace? Old Mrs. Grant and Elsie, I should say, offhand.”
“Yes,” agreed his daughter. “And I’m sure Mrs. Grace Grant wouldn’t steal. Besides, she’s too old to get down a ladder.”
“Hold on a minute!” cautioned her father. “You’re not sure that your thief got away in that manner. Suppose, as you are inclined to believe, she was at Dark Cedars when you arrived last night, and suppose she did hide in the closet until she thought you were asleep. When she finished her job, why couldn’t she have walked down the stairs and out the door—it must unlock from the inside—while you were still locked in the closet?”
“That’s true. But wouldn’t Elsie have heard her?”
“Probably. But, then, she’d have been likely to hear anybody getting out of a window.... Yes, I think suspicion points to the young girl, with one possible exception.”
“You mean Corinne Pearson?”