re rapidly,
and without looking at either of us.

"I carried, not in the valise, a bundle of letters, five in all, which
had been written by Henry Butler to Mr. Fleming, letters that showed
what a dupe Butler had been, that he had been negligent, but not
criminal; accusing Fleming of having ruined him, and demanding certain
notes that would have proved it. If Butler could have produced the
letters at the time of his trial, things would have been different."

"Were you going to sell the letters?" Margery demanded, with quick
scorn.

"I intended to, but--I didn't. It was a little bit too dirty, after all.
I met Mrs. Butler for the second time in my life, at the gate down
there, as I came up from the train the night I got here from Plattsburg.
She had offered to buy the letters, and I had brought them to sell to
her. And then, at the last minute, I lied. I said I couldn't get
them--that they were locked in the Monmouth Avenue house. I put her in a
taxicab that she had waiting, and she went back to town. I felt like a
cad; she wanted to clear her husband's memory, and I--well, Mr. Fleming
was your father, Margery, I couldn't hurt you like that."

"Do you think Mrs. Butler took your leather bag?" I asked.

"I do not think so. It seems to be the only explanation, but I did not
let it out of my hand one moment while we were talking. My hand was
cramped from holding it, when she gave up in despair at last, and went
back to the city."

"What did you do with the letters she wanted?"

"I kept them with me that night, and the next morning hid them in the
secret closet. That was when I dropped my fountain pen!"

"And the pearls?" Margery asked suddenly. "When did you get them,
Harry?"

To my surprise his face did not change. He appeared to be thinking.

"Two days before I left," he said. "We were using every method to get
money, and your father said to sacrifice them, if necessary."

"My father!"

He wheeled on us both.

"Did you think I stole them?" he demanded. And I confess that I was
ashamed to say I had thought precisely that.

"Your father gave me nine unmounted pearls to sell," he reiterated. "I
got about a thousand dollars for them--eleven hundred and something, I
believe."

Margery looked at me. I think she was fairly stunned. To learn that her
father had married again, that he had been the keystone in an arch of
villainy that, with him gone, was now about to fall, and to associate
him with so small and