"Partly from Miriam, partly from my own inborn ingenuity, as a Yankee, in guessing. Please answer my question."
"I didn't know I was before time. It was later than half past nine by my watch when I quitted the house. I remember listening for the clocks to strike ten as I reached Fourteenth Street."
"You didn't hear them?"
"No."
"Of course not. Your watch was tampered with, and that confirms my suspicion of Mrs. Walraven. Believe me, Mollie, a trap was laid for you, and you were caught in it. You never met 'Black Mask' that night."
"If I thought so!" Mollie cried, clasping her hands.
"You will find it so," Hugh Ingelow said, very quietly. "Let that be Doctor Oleander's punishment. Make him confess his fraud—make him confess Mrs. Walraven aided and abetted him—to-night."
"How can I?"
"Simply enough. Accuse him and her before us all. There will be no one present you can not trust. Your guardian, Sir Roger, and myself know already. Sardonyx is Mr. Walraven's lawyer, and silence is a lawyer's forte."
"Well?" breathlessly.