“You say it is your own affair,” Penny remarked pointedly. “I am afraid it isn’t. Aren’t you forgetting a little matter of $250,000?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“I refer to that sum in negotiable bonds which you had in your possession at the time you left the bank.”
Mr. Rhett did not seem to understand for a moment. Then he exclaimed: “Oh, the bonds! I was to have returned them to the vault, but it slipped my mind. You will find them in the top desk drawer in my office.”
“The desk has been carefully searched. The bonds are not there.”
“Not there?” For the first time Mr. Rhett seemed disturbed. “But they must be, unless they were stolen after I went away!”
“The bonds have not been found, and the bank trustees are pressing your family to make restitution. Furthermore, your wife is dangerously ill.”
“My wife sick? What is wrong?”
“The doctors do not know. However, Lorinda burned an effigy doll made in your wife’s image—she found it in the house. Two burned match sticks tied together also were found by Mrs. Rhett. For some reason she became obsessed with the idea she was doomed to a lingering fatal illness. She began to refuse food and since then has gone steadily downhill.”
“The work of Celeste!”