Dale wondered which angle was best from which to present her appeal.

“Well, even if you haven’t lost anything in this bank failure, a lot of your friends have—­surely?” she went on.

“I’ll say so!” said Fleming, debonairly.  “Beresford is sitting down the road in his Packard now writhing with pain!”

Dale hesitated; Fleming’s lightness seemed so incorrigible that, for a moment, she was on the verge of giving her project up entirely.  Then, “Waster or not—­he’s the only man who can help us!” she told herself and continued.

“Lots of awfully poor people are going to suffer, too,” she said wistfully.

Fleming chuckled, dismissing the poor with a wave of his hand.

“Oh, well, the poor are always in trouble,” he said with airy heartlessness.  “They specialize in suffering.”

He extracted a monogrammed cigarette from a thin gold case.

“But look here,” he went on, moving closer to Dale, “you didn’t send for me to discuss this hypothetical poor depositor, did you?  Mind if I smoke?”

“No.”  He lit his cigarette and puffed at it with enjoyment while Dale paused, summoning up her courage.  Finally the words came in a rush.

“Mr. Fleming, I’m going to say something rather brutal.  Please don’t mind.  I’m merely—­desperate!  You see, I happen to be engaged to the cashier, Jack Bailey—­”

Fleming whistled.  “I see!  And he’s beat it!”

Dale blazed with indignation.

“He has not!  I’m going to tell you something.  He’s here, now, in this house—­” she continued fierily, all her defenses thrown aside.  “My aunt thinks he’s a new gardener.  He is here, Mr. Fleming, because he knows he didn’t take the money, and the only person who could have done it was—­your uncle!”

Dick Fleming dropped his cigarette in a convenient ash tray and crushed it out there, absently, not seeming to notice whether it scorched his fingers or not.  He rose and took a turn about the room.  Then he came back to Dale.

“That’s a pretty strong indictment to bring against a dead man,” he said slowly, seriously.

“It’s true!” Dale insisted stubbornly, giving him glance for glance.

Fleming nodded.  “All right.”

He smiled—­a smile that Dale didn’t like.

“Suppose it’s true—­where do I come in?” he said.  “You don’t think I know where the money is?”

“No,” admitted Dale, “but I think you might help to find it.”

She went swiftly over to the hall door and listened tensely for an instant.  Then she came back to Fleming.

“If anybody comes in—­you’ve just come to get something of yours,” she said in a low voice.  He nodded understandingly.  She dropped her voice still lower.

“Do you know anything about a Hidden Room in this house?” she asked.

Dick Fleming stared at her for a moment.  Then he burst into laughter.