“Milly has gone to Madame Celeste’s,” Adelaide answered. “She wanted to pay a bill.”
“But she had no business to leave the house until she had given her testimony,” I exclaimed. “I wonder why Madame gave her permission.”
“I don’t think Milly asked it,” Adelaide replied; “and I fancy Milly was not at all anxious to have this interview with the detective and merely caught at Madame Celeste as a way of escape. She is not often in such a twitter of promptness in settling her accounts; besides, now I think of it, all her money was taken. How could she pay Celeste?”
Winnie looked up from the table on which her elbows were resting, her head grasped firmly between her hands as though it ached. She took no part in the conversation until I remarked:
“Well, if Milly thinks to escape Mr. Mudge by running away to Madame Celeste’s she is badly taken in, for he is going right over there.”
“What?” Winnie almost shrieked. “Does he suspect that she has anything to do with this miserable business?”
“Madame Celeste? No, but he wants to find why Cynthia had her dress charged to Milly’s account.”
“O Tib, Tib, why did you ever mention that?” Winnie groaned; “you don’t know what mischief you have made.”
“How did you know it, anyway?” Adelaide asked. “This is the first I have heard of the matter.”
“I did not know it,” I replied. “Mr. Mudge was looking over the papers he took from Milly’s drawer and he came across this bill for Cynthia’s dark green cloth dress, charged up against Milly, and I—I just happened to say that was Cynthia’s dress——”