“Your maid!” the deputy-surveyor cried. “Why didn’t you tell the company that? Bronson never told me about it.”
“She didn’t disappear till after the claim was paid, you see,” Miss Cartwright explained. “Then I got a note from her confessing, a note written in Canada.”
“Whereabouts in Canada?” he demanded.
“I don’t recall it,” he was told.
“You don’t? Well, what was your maid’s name then? I’d like to know that, if you can remember it for me.”
“Marie Garnier was her name.”
He took up a scribbling pad and inscribed the name on it. “Marie Garnier,” he muttered, and pushed the buzzer. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
“What was the good?” Miss Cartwright returned. “I was fond of Marie—she was almost one of the family—and I didn’t want to brand her as a thief. When I learned she had escaped to Canada where the law couldn’t reach her—”
She was interrupted by Duncan’s entrance. “Yes, sir?” said he to his chief.
Taylor handed him the leaf he had torn from the pad. “Attend to this at once,” he ordered.