"Did Mrs. Berry tell you that I had them?"
"No need to bother with that part of it now. I know."
"But she did not give you authority to come to me about them? Don't pretend she did; I know better."
"I'm not goin' to pretend—that. She didn't."
"Humph!" with a sneer; "perhaps your authority comes from some one else. Her daughter, maybe? You and she are—or shall we say were—quite touchingly confidential at one time, I believe."
The tone and the remark were mistakes; it would have been much better for the Phillips cause if the speaker had continued to be loftily condescending. Sears kept a grip on his temper, but his own tone changed as he replied.
"Egbert," he said sharply, "look here. The facts, as far as a man without a spyglass can sight 'em through the fog, are just these: You got George Kent into a stock trade. He put up money—real money. You put up two thousand dollars in bonds and, because that was more than your share, he paid you four hundred dollars in cash. The last anybody knew the two bonds you put up were the property of Cordelia Berry. I want to know how you got hold of 'em."
"Am I to understand that you are accusing me of stealing those bonds?"
"I'm not accusin' you of anything in particular. George has put this affair of his in my hands; I've got what amounts to his signed power of attorney in my pocket. If those bonds are yours, and you can prove it, then I shan't say any more about 'em. If they still belong to Cordelia—well, that's another question, one I mean to have the answer to before you and I part company."
"Kendrick, I—— Do you realize that I can have you arrested for this?"