Miles looked at her severely.
"Mrs. Bunce," he said, "if I were you I would admit I found the bills myself, otherwise it may be awkward for you when we have to put you and your servant on the stand to prove where they were found. This gentleman and myself will not say anything about this conversation and there will be no trouble if you simply tell the truth about it."
The woman broke down finally and began whining something about a poor woman not being allowed to keep what she found in her own house and what belonged to her by right, but Miles did not wait to listen but left the house, I following him.
Once alone with him again I could not restrain the expression of my disappointment.
"That was a very clever piece of work, indeed," I said, "but unfortunately does the case of Winters harm instead of good."
"How?" he asked.
"Why, the missing bills having now been accounted for," I answered, "there is nothing to show that any one else was on the scene that night or to furnish a motive for the crime, and so there remains no one but Winters to whom suspicion can attach."
"You don't look at it properly," he answered; "the most important thing incidental to the discovery of the money is the fact that its effect will be to substantiate Winters's statement."
I looked at him inquiringly, and seeing I did not comprehend, he explained.
"White evidently took all the money with him, carelessly stuffed in the outside pocket of his ulster, when he went out that night and he might easily have dropped one of the bills in the vestibule: such being the case, Winters's statement that he found it there becomes not only reasonable, but probable."