The chief remained silent. By this time the members of the club who were not under arrest were leaving the room, never to return. The prisoners were grouped on one corner of the stage, some of them in the costumes they had prepared for the play, which was now destined never to be presented by the club.
Nick picked up jewels as they fell from the unconscious girl.
“It seems,” he said, “that Bernice cannot prove true even to her associates in crime. All the larger stones here are paste. How the girl substituted them for the real diamonds in one day’s time is more than I can tell.”
The chief of the syndicate and Anton stepped forward in angry wonder.
The chief muttered a savage oath.
“I have suspected the girl all along,” he said. “That is why she has always been followed.”
“For all that,” said Nick, “she was your best assistant. She did her work cleverly and left no clue, as a rule. I can’t understand how she came to murder Townsend.”
“She never did!” shouted Anton.