Polly stared at it. “My mind was far from my work,” she stammered. “I wrote mechanically on the typewriter any silly sentences that came into my head. I did know your safe-combination, for you had me write it down for you once and the figures dwelt in my memory; but indeed I did not repeat them to Austin.”
“You did not need to,” broke in Mrs. Hale. “I had Austin once open the safe for me, Robert, in your absence. I needed my jewelry, and I supposed he remembered the combination or—”
“Or jotted it down for future use,” Turner interrupted her brusquely. “I found a soiled bit of paper with several numbers torn off on Austin’s bureau when I slipped in his bedroom on my way to bed. He must have refreshed his memory before going down to the library by studying the paper.”
“What was he searching for in the safe?” asked Hale.
“I know,” volunteered Mrs. Hale. She stared anywhere but at her husband. “Austin had very wheedling ways, and sometimes when he was hard pressed for money, he persuaded me to lend it to him.”
“Agatha!”
“I know, Robert, it was foolish.” Mrs. Hale’s voice trembled with a suspicion of tears. “The sum finally totaled four thousand seven hundred and eighty-two dollars.”
“Good Lord!” and Hale eyed her in dismay.
“I had his memorandum of his indebtedness,” she went on, paying no attention to her husband. “I wrote reminding him of it, and that I had placed it in your safe intending to show it to you, Robert—” Hale groaned dismally and his wife burst into tears. “I dared not ask outright about the memorandum as I feared it might be suspected that Austin and I had quarreled over it.”
Judith broke in upon any reproaches her father might have made.