"I refuse to tell you that," retorted the girl, anxious not to incriminate Mrs. Tunks until she had interviewed her.
"You must tell!" yelled Mrs. Vand, her face on fire with rage and expectation. "You've come in sneaking by these secret passages to steal. Jabez never gave you any of his papers. They are mine, and if they tell where the jewels are, you minx——"
"They don't tell where the jewels are," interrupted Bella, "but they state how Captain Huxham murdered Maxwell Faith in Nigeria to get them."
"You talk of your dead father as Captain Huxham," said Mrs. Vand sniffing.
Her husband made a gesture of silence. "Maxwell Faith was the name mentioned by Granny in her trance, and she also spoke of this murder. Did she see the papers?"
"Ah!" Bella was suddenly enlightened. Perhaps Granny had learned about the jewels from the papers which had been taken from the carved chest in the attic. But then in that first set of papers, as she thought, the name of Maxwell Faith had not been mentioned. "Granny saw one set of papers, but not the set I mean."
"Then there are other papers you have stolen," cried Mrs. Vand furiously. "Upon my word, Bella, you are a fine thief and no mistake. Give up those papers, so that we may learn where my jewels are."
"They are not your jewels, but mine," said Bella, stepping back into the hollow left by the open panel, "and you shall not have them."
"Where are they? where are they?" cried Vand, becoming excited in his turn.
"I wish I knew, but I don't. Captain Huxham had them, before he died——"