"Then don't keep on saying you don't remember!" said the Inspector severely. "Now then, sir: are you sure you hadn't got the case on you when you left the room?"
"Perfectly."
"That's true!" Joseph exclaimed. "Now I come to think of it, you asked him for a cigarette, Paula, when we came down from poor Nat's room, and he put his hand in his pocket, as though to pull out his case, and then just nodded to the box -"He stopped short, as the infelicitous nature of his testimony apparently dawned on him. "Not that that proves anything!" he added, in a hurry.
"No, sir," agreed the Inspector dryly, and turned from him to Valerie again. "You say you put the case down on the table, miss -"
"I didn't say I actually did! I only said I most probably did!" replied Valerie, who seemed to have decided that her only safety lay in prevarication. "And it's no use badgering me, because —'
"Valerie, my child!" Joseph said, taking one of her hands, and holding it between both of his. "The Inspector only wants to get at the truth of what happened! You mustn't think that you'll be incriminating anyone just by telling him quite frankly what you did with Stephen's case."
"I don't care about that," said Valerie, stating a self evident fact. "But I know quite well Mathilda's trying to put it onto me, and it isn't fair!"
"No, no; Tilda never had any such idea, had you, Tilda? She knows you couldn't have done it."
It now seemed good to Paula to pour oil on sinking flames. "Indeed!" she ejaculated. "How, may I ask, does she know that?"
"Good God, Paula, she hasn't got the guts, let alone the ingenuity!" replied Mathilda.