Under Cover Part 15

"At first I thought of killing myself but I was afraid. And then I saw your jewel-case and I pretended they were stolen. I got half the money from the p.a.w.n-shop and the other half from you when the company settled.

It was wicked of me, Ethel, but what could I do?"

Ethel put her arm about the poor sobbing girl very tenderly.

"My poor little sister," she whispered, "my little Amy, you did the better thing after all. But you should have told me before, so that I could have helped you."

"I was afraid to," the girl said, looking into the face above her, "I meant to have told you next month when that money is coming from father's estate. I thought we could pay the company then so that I shouldn't feel like a thief. I'm so glad I've told you; it has frightened me so!" But the grave expression on Ethel's face alarmed her.

"Why do you look like that?" she demanded.

"It will be all right," Ethel a.s.sured her. "But you know those dividends have been delayed this month and neither mother nor I have any spare money if the Burglar Insurance people want to be paid back. I daresay we can arrange something, so don't be frightened. And remember, this man Taylor can't know certainly. He only suspects, and we ought to be able to beat him if we are very careful. I'm so glad you told me so that I know what to do."

"But I'm afraid of him," Amy cried. "I shall break down and they'll put me in prison. Ethel, I should die if they did that."

"I'll save you, dear," Ethel said comfortingly. "You know you have always been able to believe in me, and I will save you if only you try to control yourself."

"Then let me go home," Amy cried, panic-stricken by the thought of another interview with the resourceful Taylor. "I shall break down if I stay here."

"That will be best," Ethel agreed, and went quickly to the door, behind which she found Duncan on guard.

"Sorry, miss," he said respectfully, "but you can't go."

"I'm not leaving," Ethel Cartwright explained, "I still have to talk with Mr. Taylor, but my sister must go. She isn't feeling very well. She wants to go home."

Duncan shook his head. "Neither of you can go," he returned, as he closed the door. Amy looked about her nervously for other means of escape.

"You see," she whispered, "they're going to keep me here a prisoner!

What shall I do?"

"Leave everything to me," Ethel commanded. "Let me do the talking. I shall be able to think of some way out."

"There isn't, there isn't!" Amy moaned.

"Stop crying," the elder insisted. "That won't help us. I've thought of a plan. I'll invent a story to fool him. He won't be able to find out whether it's true or not, so he'll have to let us go, and when he does, he won't get us back here again in a hurry."

"Oh, Ethel, you're wonderful!" Amy exclaimed, her face clearing. In all her small troubles she had always gone to this beautiful, serene elder sister, who had never yet failed her and never would, she was confident.

When Taylor entered a minute later he found the two girls looking out of the big window across the harbor. They seemed untroubled and unafraid and were discussing the dimensions of a big liner making her way out.

"Sorry to have had to leave you," he said briskly, "especially as things were getting a bit interesting."

Ethel Cartwright looked at him coldly. It was a glance which Taylor rightly interpreted as a warning to remember that he occupied a wholly different sphere from that of the daughters of the late Vernon Cartwright. But it daunted him little. The Secretary of the Treasury had just told him that his work was evoking great interest in Washington.

And the Collector somewhat cryptically had said that Daniel Taylor might always be relied upon to do the unexpected. For Washington and Collectors, Taylor had little respect. Unconsciously he often paraphrased that royal boast, "_L'etat c'est moi!_" by admitting to his confidants that he, Daniel Taylor, was the United States Customs.

"I quite fail to see," Miss Cartwright observed chillingly, "what all this rather impertinent cross-questioning of my sister has to do with--"

"You will in a minute," he interrupted.

"Meanwhile," she said, "I can't wait any longer for those papers about the ring."

"There isn't any ring," he said suavely. "That was just a pretext to get you here. I was afraid the truth wouldn't be sufficiently luring so I had to employ a ruse."

She looked at him, her eyes flashing at his daring to venture on such a deception. "You actually asked me to come here because you thought I had swindled the company?"

"Well," he observed genially, "we all make our little mistakes."

"So you admit it was a mistake?" she said, hardly knowing what to make of this changed manner.

"I'm quite sure of it," he a.s.serted. "_You_ are innocent, Miss Cartwright. How am I so sure of it? Because I happen to have the thief already."

"You have the thief?" Amy cried, startled out of her determination to say nothing.

"Yes," he told her nonchalantly, "I've arrested the man who robbed your sister. Poor devil, he has a wife and children. He swears they'll starve, and very likely they will, but he's guilty and to jail he goes."

"Are you sure he's guilty?" Amy stammered.

He leaned over his desk and looked at her surprised. "Why, yes," he said slowly. "Have you any reason to think different?"

"No, no!" she cried, shrinking back.

"But I have," Ethel said calmly. "I have every reason to believe he is innocent."

"_You_ have?" Taylor cried, himself perplexed at the turn things were taking.

Amy looked at her sister, wondering what was coming next.

"I know who stole them," Ethel went on. "It was my maid."

"Your maid!" the deputy-surveyor cried. "Why didn't you tell the company that? Bronson never told me about it."

"She didn't disappear till after the claim was paid, you see," Miss Cartwright explained. "Then I got a note from her confessing, a note written in Canada."

"Whereabouts in Canada?" he demanded.

"I don't recall it," he was told.

"You don't? Well, what was your maid's name then? I'd like to know that, if you can remember it for me."

"Marie Garnier was her name."

He took up a scribbling pad and inscribed the name on it. "Marie Garnier," he muttered, and pushed the buzzer. "Why didn't you tell me this before?"

"What was the good?" Miss Cartwright returned. "I was fond of Marie--she was almost one of the family--and I didn't want to brand her as a thief. When I learned she had escaped to Canada where the law couldn't reach her--"

She was interrupted by Duncan's entrance. "Yes, sir?" said he to his chief.

Taylor handed him the leaf he had torn from the pad. "Attend to this at once," he ordered.

"Now, Miss Cartwright," he remarked, "I'd like to ask why it was you made this admission about Marie Garnier."