"Avaunt, dull care!" he exclaimed, taking in my dejected attitude and exhibits on the desk at a glance. "Look up and grin, my friend." He had his hands behind him.
"Don't be a fool," I snapped. "I'll not grin unless I feel like it."
"Grin, darn you," he said, and put something on the desk in front of me. It was a Russia leather bag.
"The leather bag!" he pointed proudly.
"Where did you get it?" I exclaimed, incredulous. Burton fumbled with the lock while he explained.
"It was found in Boston," he said. "How do you open the thing, anyhow?"
It was not locked, and I got it open in a minute. As I had expected, it was empty.
"Then—perhaps Wardrop was telling the truth," I exclaimed. "By Jove, Burton, he was robbed by the woman in the cab, and he can't tell about her on account of Miss Fleming! She made a haul, for certain."
I told him then of the two women who had left Bellwood on the night of Miss Jane's disappearance, and showed him the purse and its inclosure. The C puzzled him as it had me. "It might be anything," he said as he gave it back, "from a book, chapter and verse in the Bible to a prescription for rheumatism at a drug-store. As to the lady in the cab, I think perhaps you are right," he said, examining the interior of the bag, where Wardrop's name in ink told its story. "Of course, we have only Wardrop's word that he brought the bag to Bellwood; if we grant that we can grant the rest—that he was robbed, that the thief emptied the bag, and either took it or shipped it to Boston."
"How on earth did you get it?"