"The rest of it?" queried Dale with a show of bewilderment, silently thanking her stars that, for the moment at least, the incriminating fragment had passed out of her possession.
Her reply seemed only to infuriate the detective.
"Don't tell me Fleming started to go out of this house with a blank scrap of paper in his hand," he threatened. "He didn't start to go out at all!"
Dale rose. Was Anderson trying a chance shot in the dark--or had he stumbled upon some fresh evidence against her? She could not tell from his manner.
"Why do you say that?" she feinted.
"His cap's there on that table," said the detective with crushing terseness. Dale started. She had not remembered the cap--why hadn't she burned it, concealed it--as she had concealed the blue-print? She passed a hand over her forehead wearily.
Miss Cornelia watched her niece.
"It you're keeping anything back, Dale--tell him," she said.
"She's keeping something back all right," he said. "She's told part of the truth, but not all." He hammered at Dale again. "You and Fleming located that room by means of a blue-print of the house. He started--not to go out--but, probably, to go up that staircase. And he had in his hand the rest of this!" Again he displayed the blank corner of blue paper.
Dale knew herself cornered at last. The detective's deductions were too shrewd; do what she would, she could keep him away from the truth no longer.
"He was going to take the money and go away with it!" she said rather pitifully, feeling a certain relief of despair steal over her, now that she no longer needed to go on lying--lying--involving herself in an inextricable web of falsehood.
"Dale!" gasped Miss Cornelia, alarmed. But Dale went on, reckless of consequences to herself, though still warily shielding Jack.
"He changed the minute he heard about it. He was all kindness before that--but afterward--" She shuddered, closing her eyes. Fleming's face rose before her again, furious, distorted with passion and greed--then, suddenly, quenched of life.
Anderson turned to Miss Cornelia triumphantly.
"She started to find the money--and save Bailey," he explained, building up his theory of the crime. "But to do it she had to take Fleming into her confidence--and he turned yellow. Rather than let him get away with it, she--" He made an expressive gesture toward his hip pocket.
Dale trembled, feeling herself already in the toils. She had not quite realized, until now, how damningly plausible such an explanation of Fleming's death could sound. It fitted the evidence perfectly--it took account of every factor but one--the factor left unaccounted for was one which even she herself could not explain.