“You wanted a detective!” she said in an ironic whisper.  “I hope you’re happy now you’ve got one!”

Miss Cornelia gave her a look that sent her scuttling back to her former post by the door.  But nevertheless, internally, she felt thoroughly in accord with Lizzie.

Again Anderson’s questions pounded at the rigid Dale, striving to pierce her armor of mingled truth and falsehood.

“When Fleming came in, what did he say to you?”

“Just—­something about the weather,” said Dale weakly.  The whole scene was, still too horribly vivid before her eyes for her to furnish a more convincing alibi.

“You didn’t have any quarrel with him?”

Dale hesitated.

“No.”

“He just came in that door—­said something about the weather—­and was shot from that staircase.  Is that it?” said the detective in tones of utter incredulity.

Dale hesitated again.  Thus baldly put, her story seemed too flimsy for words; she could not even blame Anderson for disbelieving it.  And yet—­what other story could she tell that would not bring ruin on Jack?

Her face whitened.  She put her hand on the back of a chair for support.

“Yes—­that’s it,” she said at last, and swayed where she stood.

Again Miss Cornelia tried to come to the rescue.  “Are all these questions necessary?” she queried sharply.  “You can’t for a moment believe that Miss Ogden shot that man!” But by now, though she did not show it, she too began to realize the strength of the appalling net of circumstances that drew with each minute tighter around the unhappy girl.  Dale gratefully seized the momentary respite and sank into a chair.  The detective looked at her.

“I think she knows more than she’s telling.  She’s concealing something!” he said with deadly intentness.  “The nephew of the president of the Union Bank—­shot in his own house the day the bank has failed—­that’s queer enough—­” Now he turned back to Miss Cornelia.  “But when the only person present at his murder is the girl who’s engaged to the guilty cashier,” he continued, watching Miss Cornelia’s face as the full force of his words sank into her mind, “I want to know more about it!”

He stopped.  His right hand moved idly over the edge of the table —­halted beside an ash tray—­closed upon something.

Miss Cornelia rose.

“Is that true, Dale?” she said sorrowfully.

Dale nodded.  “Yes.”  She could not trust herself to explain at greater length.

Then Miss Cornelia made one of the most magnificent gestures of her life.

“Well, even if it is—­what has that got to do with it?” she said, turning upon Anderson fiercely, all her protective instinct for those whom she loved aroused.

Anderson seemed somewhat impressed by the fierceness of her query.  When he went on it was with less harshness in his manner.

“I’m not accusing this girl,” he said more gently.  “But behind every crime there is a motive.  When we’ve found the motive for this crime, we’ll have found the criminal.”