"_So that was your motive_"
Two hours later Grace was explaining herself. She was still pale, but
very calm now, though a little sad. The sadness was not occasioned by
any doubt she felt about her father. She had telephoned home and learned
that he had arrived there and was well, and had nothing but good to say
of his captors. No, there was another cause for her manifest depression,
a cause not disconnected with Philip, toward whom her eyes ever and anon
stole with an uneasy appeal which her mother would have been troubled to
see. But it comforted Fellows, who began to regard her threats as idle
in face of the evidence of her complicity as afforded by the concealed
bracelet.
The officer on duty was questioning her. Had she done this and that?
Yes, she had. Why? Then she told her story--the story you have already
read. As she proceeded with it, every eye sparkled under the graphic
tale, and the police, who had some acquaintance with Beau Johnson,
recognized his hand in all that she told. One face only wore a sneer,
and that was Fellows's. But no sneer could discredit a story told with
such vim and straightforward earnestness. As she mentioned the emptying
of the office, each person present turned and gave him a look. The
manager had undertaken a piece of work too big for him. His explanations
of the presence of the graphophone in this inner office were feeble and
contradictory.
But he had his revenge, or thought he had, when she came to the jewels.
She had pointed them out, but only to save a worse disaster. Injury to
her father? "Yes, and----" She paused and her voice thrilled. "In one of
the secret drawers," she continued, "there was an immense amount of
currency in large denominations, the loss of which would cripple the
business, if not bankrupt Mr. Stoughton. His hand was feeling its way
along the face of this drawer. In another moment he would have
discovered the tiny knob by the manipulation of which this drawer opens.
To save the struggle which would have ensued, I directed his attention
elsewhere. I don't believe I did wrong."
"But you accepted one of these articles as your share. Do you believe
you did right in this?"
"Yes. I will not mention the smallness of the share, for that makes the
portion saved for the owner of little account. Yet that portion is
saved. I wish it had been a larger one."
"No doubt. So that was your motive--to save this souvenir for Mr.
Stoughton?"
Casting a proud look at Philip, she moved a step nearer to the table on
which the bracelet lay. "Will you be good enough," she asked her
interrogator, "to take up that bracelet and read the initials on the
inner side?"
"R. S. T.," read the official.
"Does any one here know Mrs. Stoughton's maiden name?"
Evidently not, for all remained silent.
"Does any one here know my mother's maiden name?"
Philip started.
"Yes," he cried, "I do. Her name was Rhoda Selden Titus."
[Illustration: "_'R. S. T.' read the official_"]
"R. S. T.," smiled Grace. "This bracelet was my mother's. Mr. Stoughton
allowed me to place this keepsake and some other valuables of mine in
his private safe. Gentlemen, the whole of those jewels were mine--my
sole and only fortune. I was keeping them for"--her eyes stole toward
Philip--"for my marriage portion, the secret and great surprise I had
planned for my future husband. They are worth some five thousand
dollars--my mother was the daughter of a wealthy man. They would have
given us a home if I could have kept them; they would also have given my
husband a start in business, and this I should have preferred, but I
could not let Mr. Stoughton's securities be endangered, and so they had
to go. Philip, cannot you forgive me when you think that it was through
my folly the secret of the safe became known?"
"I forgive you?" He could not show his feelings, but his eyes were
eloquent; so were Fellows's; so were those of the various officials.
"You can prove these statements, Miss Lee?" asked one.
"Easily," she replied.
Then they turned to Fellows.