s; she was just outside the
door--listening, I'll be bound."

"You are sure of that?"

"Sure that she was listening? Well, isn't she a woman? What else would
she be doing?"

"That is all I want to ask you," he said quietly.

She looked at him wonderingly.

"All?" she asked. "You rode out from Waroona merely to ask me that bit
of a question?"

He nodded.

"Well, then," she exclaimed, "if that's how you're going to catch the
thieves it's good-bye to my papers."

The eyes which met his told of anger and indignation.

"You expected a rigid cross-examination?" he asked, with a smile.

"I expected questions which would have some bearing on the affair," she
retorted.

"Your experience in this sort of thing is somewhat limited, Mrs. Burke.
A tangled skein is unravelled by following a mere thread, not by tearing
at the entire mass. I have hold of a thread, and I am following it."

"And where will it lead you?"

"Where? It does not matter where so long as the tangle is made
straight."

"While my papers and my----"

"You need not be uneasy," he interrupted. "They are just as safe as
though you held them in your hand."

"Safe for those who stole them," she retorted, with a short, satirical
laugh.

"Safe for you," he answered. "You have not been long enough in the
country to realise how complete a system of detection we have here. I
have never felt more certain of securing both the culprits and the
stolen property than I am in this case."

Again she gave a short, satirical laugh.

"Oh, yes," she said. "Of course. You know exactly where the thieves are
and where they have hidden what was taken and also where they are
hiding. You can put your hands on them whenever you like. One does not
need to come to Australia to hear that sort of romance, Mr. Durham; I
hoped rather that one would not hear it in Australia, but you police are
as capable at blundering and bungling and bluffing here as elsewhere."

"I am neither bungling nor bluffing," he answered quietly.

"You are doing both," she replied warmly. "What are you doing here now?
Why have you come bothering me with ridiculous questions? What can I
tell you more than the bank people themselves? Or is it that you think I
am the thief? Why don't you say at once you suspect me--old Patsy and
myself? Sure it would be in keeping with the rest of it--wasting your
time and mine by coming out to ask who was in the passage when I left
the dining-room! What has that to