“She doesn’t seem to mean to give you a chance now,” observed Clifford.
Hemming affected to think that her capture was only a matter of minutes, as he kept to his post, watching the front of the house, while the other men searched the premises at the back. But he hardly looked so confident as might have been expected from his words.
Indeed, he had cause for uneasiness. It was he who had first conceived suspicions of Miss Theodora, and it had taken all the ingenuity of which he was master to get together enough evidence against her to justify him in asking for a warrant. The sight of an old scar on one of her little hands, on the occasion of one of his visits to Shingle End, had suggested to him that she might have been the woman whose hand he had burned with the fuse at the inn.
But it had been a long time before he could make out a case—not, indeed, until he had thought of using the now half-witted George Claris, whom he had got out of the hands of simple Nell under a promise, which had been faithfully kept, that he should be well taken care of, and that he should return to her very shortly. Even then the difficulties in the way of the police had been great. At first Claris was sullen and taciturn. No questions would obtain from him a clear answer as to the events of the night which had turned his brain. It was not until that very afternoon that he had accused Miss Bostal by name of the thefts, and thus furnished the police with enough data for further proceedings.
Clifford listened in dumb bewilderment.
“What can she have done it for? Is she mad?” asked he, presently.
Hemming shrugged his shoulders.
“Doesn’t look much like madness to have shot the man who was going to inform against her,” said he, dryly.
“Good gracious! Then you think she—”
It was hardly conceivable to him even yet that the prim, rigorous little old maid, who had been so much shocked at his walking along a country road on Sunday in a light suit, could have been guilty of the systematic crimes now laid to her charge. In the silence which followed his words one of the two Stroan policemen came up.