“Mrs. Burmaster!” Louise echoed, rather stunned by the accusation.
“She’d move Heaven and Earth to git me off this here bit o’ land. She hates me, and I hate her.”
“But how could Mrs. Burmaster know you had the deed?” Penny asked. “You never told her, did you?”
“Seems to me like onest in an argument I did say somethin’ about having it here in the house,” Mrs. Lear admitted. “We was goin’ it hot and heavy one day, an’ I don’t remember jest what I did tell her. Too much, I reckon.”
The old lady sat down heavily in a chair by the stove. She looked sick and beaten.
“Don’t take it so hard,” Penny advised kindly. “You can’t be sure that Mrs. Burmaster stole the deed.”
“Who else would want it?”
“Some other person might have done it for spite.”
Mrs. Lear shook her head. “So far’s I know, I ain’t got another enemy in the whole world. Oh, Mrs. Burmaster done it all right.”
“But what can she hope to gain?” asked Penny.