“Where have you been most of the evening, nurse?” questioned Calderon Fordyce sternly. “My wife informed me, when I went to see how she was, that you had been absent for over an hour.”
“I came downstairs to do an errand for her,” lied Kathryn. “Your wife was asleep when I left her.”
“I do not like such conduct,” said Fordyce curtly. “I have already telephoned to the hospital for another nurse. You may leave at once.”
Kathryn’s eyes blazed with wrath. “You—you—send me away,” she paused to gain control of her trembling voice. “You, whose own daughter is a thief!”
“How dare you?” Both Calderon Fordyce and Duncan moved toward the enraged woman. No one paid the slightest attention to Marjorie and Paul Potter who entered at that moment, and stood regarding the tableau too surprised to speak.
“I am telling the truth,” shrieked Kathryn. “Mr. Barnard and I both watched her take your ruby pendant.”
There was dead silence as all eyes turned to Barnard. Quickly he decided; helped by the promise he read in Kathryn’s eyes: she would give him the codicil if he backed up her charge against Janet. Utterly unscrupulous himself, he never doubted that Marjorie, on impulse, had stolen the codicil; his intense egoism making him believe her past friendship for him had prompted the theft. With that codicil once safely in his possession he stood to win one hundred thousand dollars. He could depend on Kathryn’s dog-like fidelity if he showed her the slightest affection. Janet? Well, Janet could go in the discard. He cleared his throat nervously.
“The nurse’s story is quite true,” he acknowledged sorrowfully.
Calderon Fordyce staggered into the nearest chair, and Duncan paused irresolute, as remembrances crowded upon him.
“We saw Miss Fordyce go over to that desk, press a spring, open the middle part, and take out the case,” went on Kathryn vindictively, after casting a grateful look on Barnard. He had not failed her. “She removed the ruby pendant, replaced the case, and left the room.”