“Safe in a room, with a policeman on guard. I thought that better than taking them to the station house, as I believe they will confess, and make restitution. They are both badly frightened.”
This proved to be the case. All the bluster had gone from Mr. Sandow, and his wife was no longer the sneering woman she had been. She was weeping in one corner of the room as Dr. Spidderkins and his friends entered.
“So, this is the way you repay me for my kindness to you both, is it?” the aged physician exclaimed.
“Oh, Lemuel, forgive me!” pleaded his sister-in-law. “I don’t know why we did it! But you had so much money and we didn’t have any.”
“I would always have provided you with a comfortable home,” went on the doctor. “But now I will compel you to give up what you stole, and I will turn you out of my house.”
“We’ll—we’ll give it all back, Lemuel,” promised Mrs. Sandow. “We didn’t spend much of it. That lawyer got some, but the rest we have.”
“Yes; Eli Cutler is as guilty as we are,” added Mr. Sandow. “Why don’t you arrest him?”
“Perhaps we will,” replied Mr. Boise. “But are you now ready to turn over to Dr. Spidderkins all that you took belonging to him?”
“I suppose so,” mumbled Sandow.
“If they do I think it would be better to avoid the notoriety of an arrest and prosecution,” suggested the lawyer to his client.