“Were you alone when you found it?”
“Yes. No. I don’t know. There was a man somewheres near. I heard him, but I never saw him.”
“Was Mr. Francis Sedgwick with you that night?” pursued Mr. Blair in measured tones.
“I never saw Mr. Sedgwick until to-day.”
There was a little soft sigh of relief from where Marjorie Blair sat.
“That may or may not be true,” said Alexander Blair sternly. “It is the word of a man who has robbed a dead body, if, indeed, he did not also kill—”
“Steady, Mr. Blair,” broke in Chester Kent. “Perhaps, considering who is present, we would better approach this in a somewhat calmer spirit.”
“I didn’t kill or rob any one.”
The words seemed to be jerked out from between Preston Jax’s teeth by the spasmodic quiverings of his chin.
“How came you by my daughter’s jewels, then, if you did not take them from the body?”