"Says!" interrupted Kitty impatiently; "Naball's a fool. I often heard what a clever detective he was, but I'm afraid I can't see it. He's mismanaged the whole of this case shamefully. Why he suspects every one all round on the slightest suspicion: first he thought it was me, because I was at Lazarus's place on that night; then he swore it was Villiers, because he found the knife Meg gave Mr. Stewart; then poor Mr. Stewart is arrested simply because he cannot prove an alibi. I daresay, when he found Malton had the note, he suspected him, and now, I'll be bound, he has firmly settled in his own mind that Ezra Lazarus killed his own father--pish! My dear, I tell you again Naball's a fool."
"That may be," observed the other woman bitterly; "but he's a fool on whose folly Keith's life depends."
"Not a bit of it," said Caprice cheerfully; "we'll find some way to save him yet. The only evidence against him is that knife, and I don't believe it was in his possession at the Bon-Bon Theatre."
"Why not?"
"Because no one could have taken it out of his overcoat pocket there. I took the coat downstairs by mistake, but I'm sure I never abstracted the knife. Ezra Lazarus took it back, and I'll swear, in spite of Mr. Naball, he didn't take it. It's not likely Mortimer would go fiddling in another man's pockets, so I believe the knife was taken from the coat pocket, without his knowledge, at the club."
"But who took it, and how?" asked Eugénie, with great interest.
"My dear," replied Kitty, with a shrug, "how do I know. Perhaps, after receiving back the knife from Fenton, and putting it in his pocket, he hung his coat up again; in that case, anyone who saw him put the knife away could have stolen it."
"But who would do so?"
"That's what our clever Naball ought to find out," said Caprice, with a disdainful smile, "only he's such an idiot. I tell you whom I suspect--mind you, it's only suspicion--and yet appearances are quite as black against him as any one else."
"Who is it?"