“I do not know exactly. I waited only until I fancied Milly might be asleep, then I slipped out softly, closed the doors opening into all the bedrooms, lighted my candle, and examined the cabinet.”
“And when Miss Roseveldt left the room the money was there, and when you looked——”
“It was gone.”
“It seems to me,” said Cynthia maliciously, “that Winnie is placed in a very disagreeable position by these revelations. Her testimony has been very contradictory and her manner from the first, to say the least, peculiar. She acknowledges that she was awake during the time that intervened between Milly’s visit to the safe and her own. If a thief came in it is very strange that she did not hear him.”
“It is strange,” Winnie acknowledged. “I can hardly believe it possible, but these are the facts in the case. I certainly did not take the money, as Cynthia implies.”
“Tut, tut,” Mr. Mudge remarked sharply. “I am convinced that the thief is not a member of the Amen Corner. I have in turn taken up the supposition that the robbery might have been committed by each of you young ladies, beginning with Miss Cynthia and ending just now with Miss Milly, and I have proved to my own satisfaction that you are all innocent. Miss Winnie may have fallen asleep, and during her brief nap some one may have slipped in from the studio. Professor Waite had gone, but he may have left the turret door unlocked.”
“I heard no one mount the stairs,” said Milly.
“True, but a sneak thief might steal up so softly as to disturb no one. A man bent on such an errand does not usually whistle opera tunes, and then again the rogue may have been in the studio during Professor Waite’s hasty call. You told me, Miss Armstrong, that the Professor was the only one who had a key to the turret door.”
“I did,” Adelaide replied, “but I was mistaken; Polo has a duplicate key.”
“And who is this lawn tennis girl?”