“I mean just what I say,” answered McNabb, meeting the girl’s startled gaze squarely.  “A thirty thousand dollar sable coat is missing from the store, and no one except Oskar and I had access to the fur safe.  He made up a cock-an’-bull story about letting you wear it Saturday to show up Mrs. Orcutt.  He claims he went to the theatre to enjoy the effect on Mrs. Orcutt, when he discovered that you were wearing, not the Russian sable that you had worn from the store, but a baum marten coat.  He hurried to the store to find that both the sable and the marten coats were gone——­”

Old John noticed that as he talked the color receded slowly from the girl’s face, leaving it almost chalk white, and then suddenly the color returned with a rush that flamed red to her hair roots.  But he was totally unprepared for the sudden fury with which she faced him.

“And you had him arrested!  Oskar arrested like a common thief!  Are you crazy?  You know as well as I do that he never stole a pin——­”

“No, he never stole a pin, but there’s some little difference in value between a pin and a thirty thousand dollar coat.  They say every man’s got his price.”

“It’s a lie!” cried the girl, stamping her foot.  “But even if it were true, his price would be so big that there isn’t money enough in this world to even tempt him!  You ought to be ashamed of yourself!  Think what people will say!”

“I don’t care what they say.  He’s got that coat, an’ I’m right here to see that he gets just what’s comin’ to him.”

“Well, what people will say won’t hurt Oskar!” cried the girl.  “They’ll all know he didn’t steal your coat!  They’ll say you’re a fool!  That’s what they’ll say—­and they’ll be right, too!  It won’t take him long to prove his innocence, and then what will people think of you?”

“He ain’t got a show to prove his innocence,” retorted McNabb.  “Your own testimony will convict him.  Didn’t ye tell me right here in this room within the hour that the coat ye brought in was the one ye wore from the store, an’ the one ye wore to the theatre?”

“And I thought it was,” flared the girl.  “But if Oskar says it wasn’t then it wasn’t.  And let me tell you this—­if you’re depending on my testimony to convict him, you might as well have him turned loose right this minute!  Because I won’t say a word at their old trial.  They can put me in jail, too, but they can’t make me talk.  The whole thing is an outrage, and I’m going right straight down to the jail and tell them to let him out this minute——­”

“He’s out all right,” retorted McNabb.  “He knocked Hicks down and escaped on the way to jail.”

“I’m glad of it!  I hope he broke that nasty old Hicks’s head!  And if they catch Oskar you had better see that they let him go at once—­unless you want to see your own daughter married to a jailbird!”

XII