“How could I? But indeed I did think of mentioning it, and refrained because it would have looked like throwing suspicion upon my best friend.”
“Your best friend?”
“Yes, sir. She had been very kind to me; and it was she who got my uncle to send me to such a good school.”
“Oh, oh! I see. Artful all round. Doesn’t look much like insanity,” muttered Sir Neville to himself. And he continued his interrogatories: “And did not the fact that the robberies always took place when she was there excite your suspicion?”
“No, oh, no! I never thought of such a thing!” protested the young girl, earnestly.
“You say Miss Bostal was not in the house, to your knowledge, on the occasion of the subsequent robberies?”
“She was not sleeping in the house, sir,” answered Nell, looking down.
“Now, my dear Miss Claris, be candid, and tell me all you know.”
With a sigh Nell obeyed. She admitted that on the morning when her uncle was found in a state of insanity, she had made a careful search of the house and had found out a circumstance which had escaped her notice, that a spare key of the back door, which had formerly hung on a nail in the passage, had disappeared.
“How was it you had not found that out before?” asked Sir Neville, rather dryly.