"Her husband."
He threw down his pencil.
"Look here, this is no lark, young woman, and you needn't trouble yourself to weave any more fairy tales. Mr. Ramsay is in a—he's very ill. His own wife hasn't seen him since that night, so you see you're lying uselessly."
"Really!" So Edward didn't go back to Mrs. Gates' that night. Tut! tut! After his telephone message, too!
"Now, assuming your innocence of the theft, Miss Olden, what is your theory; how do you account for the presence of that purse in your flat?"
"Now, you've hit the part of it that really puzzles me. How do you account for it; what is your theory?"
He got to his feet, pushing his chair back sharply.
"My theory, if you want to know it, is that you stole the purse; that your friend Obermuller believes you did; that you got away with the three hundred, or hid it away, and—"
"And what a stupid thief I must be, then, to leave the empty purse under my lounge!"
"How do you know it was empty?" he demanded sharply.