The question was almost gasped out.
“I don’t know,” replied Chick, “but I do know that the chief knows who wrote them.”
“Does he know me?”
“The chief knows everything,” replied Chick. “No sooner had he received those letters than he started to find out who wrote them.”
“And he found out?”
“Of course he did.”
“And it was me?”
The woman suddenly laughed a mocking laugh, and Chick knew that whether the woman had written the letters or not, his play had not counted.
“If you knew as much as all that,” she said, “you would know who I am, and that’s what you don’t know.”
To this Chick could make no reply, for he felt that though her first fright indicated that she was indeed the woman who had written the letters, she had now regained possession of herself and that it was useless for him to hope to surprise her into an admission. He took another tack.