“You sent for me?” he queried of Miss Cornelia submissively, ignoring the glowering Beresford.

But Beresford would be ignored no longer.  He came between them before Miss Cornelia had time to answer.

“How long has this man been in your employ?” he asked brusquely, manner tense.

Miss Cornelia made one final attempt at evasion.  “Why should that interest you?” she parried, answering his question with an icy question of her own.

It was too late.  Already Bailey had read the truth in Beresford’s eyes.

“I came this evening,” he admitted, still hoping against hope that his cringing posture of the servitor might give Beresford pause for the moment.

But the promptness of his answer only crystallized Beresford’s suspicions.

“Exactly,” he said with terse finality.  He turned to the detective.

“I’ve been trying to recall this man’s face ever since I came in tonight—­” he said with grim triumph.  “Now, I know who he is.”

“Who is he?”

Bailey straightened up.  He had lost his game with Chance—­and the loss, coming when it did, seemed bitterer than even he had thought it could be, but before they took him away he would speak his mind.

“It’s all right, Beresford,” he said with a fatigue so deep that it colored his voice like flakes of iron-rust.  “I know you think you’re doing your duty—­but I wish to God you could have restrained your sense of duty for about three hours more!”

“To let you get away?” the young lawyer sneered, unconvinced.

“No,” said Bailey with quiet defiance.  “To let me finish what I came here to do.”

“Don’t you think you have done enough?” Beresford’s voice flicked him with righteous scorn, no less telling because of its youthfulness.  He turned back to the detective soberly enough.

“This man has imposed upon the credulity of these women, I am quite sure without their knowledge,” he said with a trace of his former gallantry.  “He is Bailey of the Union Bank, the missing cashier.”

The detective slowly put down his cigar on an ash tray.

“That’s the truth, is it?” he demanded.

Dale’s hand flew to her breast.  If Jack would only deny it—­even now!  But even as she thought this, she realized the uselessness of any such denial.

Bailey realized it, too.

“It’s true, all right,” he admitted hopelessly.  He closed his eyes for a moment.  Let them come with the handcuffs now and get it over. —­every moment the scene dragged out was a moment of unnecessary torture for Dale.

But Beresford had not finished with his indictment.  “I accuse him not only of the thing he is wanted for, but of the murder of Richard Fleming!” he said fiercely, glaring at Bailey as if only a youthful horror of making a scene before Dale and Miss Cornelia held him back from striking the latter down where he stood.