"
"Impossible!"
"Perhaps so; but you'll find that's the way of it. She listened and
heard, and patched it up with Mr. Rashleigh's dinner-table tale, and
confabulated with her cousin, and put him up to this last dodge. She saw
your advertisement in the paper, and understood it as well as you did,
and Doctor Oleander was there in waiting. You committed one unaccountable
blunder. You appointed ten for the nocturnal interview, and were at the
place of the tryst at half past nine. How do you explain that little
circumstance?"
"It seems to me, Mr. Ingelow," said Mollie, "that you must be a
sorcerer. How do you know all this?"
"Partly from Miriam, partly from my own inborn ingenuity, as a Yankee,
in guessing. Please answer my question."
"I didn't know I was before time. It was later than half past nine by my
watch when I quitted the house. I remember listening for the clocks to
strike ten as I reached Fourteenth Street."
"You didn't hear them?"
"No."
"Of course not. Your watch was tampered with, and that confirms my
suspicion of Mrs. Walraven.
Pages:
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344