"Do you really want me to answer that?" he said finally.
"We are not mincing words."
"You were not engaged to Mr. Slade at that moment," he began.
"How do you know?"
"I do know. The one thing in your interview with me I particularly remember was your anxiety that Mr. Slade should know nothing."
She remained thoughtful, bracing her fingers against each other, carefully considering what he had shown he knew.
"And your theory is that I took the ring the second time," she said, "when whoever first took it had thrown it on the table, that I called in detectives to make Slade believe it had been stolen, so that I could gamble in Wall Street without being suspected."
"Exactly," he said. "I have no means of knowing who took it first, but I would gamble my soul you took it the second time. For another reason: any one who took it knew he faced a search—that it was almost impossible to get it out of the room. The only person who could take it without being suspected was yourself."
"McKenna," she said at last, but without the amusement that had formerly been in her eyes, "you are still guessing."
He rose impatiently and went across the room, his hands behind his back.