“Me,” interposed Vevi.
“She had a bag of worthless bulbs with her—”
“Not worthless,” corrected Vevi. “They may have been culls but they were Golden Beauties. Those are the best and most valuable kind on the market now that Mr. Van Der Lann has won the blue ribbon!”
“If you’ll keep quiet for a moment, I’ll explain,” said Mrs. Gabriel, glaring at Vevi. “The child either deliberately or possibly by mistake, exchanged a bag of my good bulbs for her trash. So tonight I thought to recover my stock.”
The two police officers seemed half inclined to believe the woman’s story.
“If it were only tulip bulbs you wanted, why didn’t you come to Miss Mohr or me?” questioned the Brownie Scout leader.
“I realize I should have asked permission to dig up the bed,” replied Mrs. Gabriel glibly. “I hesitated to do so because I didn’t want to cause trouble.”
“You set great store by those tulip bulbs,” remarked Miss Mohr.
As she spoke, she glanced about the ground. The bulbs had been scattered everywhere. In her haste to dig them up. Mrs. Gabriel had broken many and chopped others in two with her sharp tool.
“If you valued your tulips so much, why did you dump all the other bags of bulbs along the roadside?” Vevi demanded.