“You possessed no previous knowledge of his purpose?”
“Only the barest outline—details were given me later.”
“Will you tell us briefly exactly what Hawley told you?”
The girl's bewildered eyes wandered from face to face, then returned to the waiting sheriff.
“May—may I sit down?” she asked.
“Most certainly; and don't be afraid, for really we wish to be your friends.”
She sank down into the chair, and even Keith could see how her slender form trembled. There was a moment's silence.
“Believe me, gentlemen,” she began, falteringly, “if there is any fraud, any conspiracy, I have borne no conscious part in it. Mr. Hawley came to me saying a dying man had left with him certain papers, naming one, Phyllis Gale, as heiress to a very large estate in North Carolina, left by her grandfather in trust. He said the girl had been taken West, when scarcely two years old, by her father in a fit of drunken rage, and then deserted by him in St. Louis.”
“You—you saw the papers?” Waite broke in.
“Yes, those that Hawley had; he gave them to me to keep for him.” She crossed to her trunk, and came back, a manilla envelope in her hand. Waite opened it hastily, running his eyes over the contents.