"Yes, I am. What then?" replied Maxwell rather haughtily, not liking his private affairs being mentioned by a complete stranger.
Mrs. Belk bent forward in a mysterious manner, touched him on the knee, then flung herself back in her chair with a searching look.
"Has she found out who killed her father?"
"Good God!"
Maxwell jumped to his feet with an ejaculation, and, one hand grasping the back of his chair, stood looking at the mean figure before him in silent amazement.
"What do you mean?" he demanded in a stifled voice.
The woman carried an obtrusive black leather bag, of no small size, with a metal clasp, and this she shook slowly at him as she replied to his question.
"In here," she said, in her monotonous voice--a voice that neither rose nor fell, but kept on droning constantly in the same dreary monotone--"in here I have something which may lead to the discovery of the criminal."
Maxwell gasped. Was chance going to reveal the secret which he had been so afraid was a secret for ever? He had been about to go down to Deswarth on an apparently hopeless quest, without anything to guide him to a conclusion; and lo! at the very time when he was starting, this woman appeared from the clouds with the asseveration that she knew something which would be a sure guide to the revealing of the mystery.
"In that bag?" he said, mechanically, looking at it in a fascinated fashion. "In that bag?"