“Oh, no!  I can’t stand it!  I’ll tell you everything!” she cried frenziedly.  “He got to the foot of the stair-case—­Richard Fleming, I mean,” she was facing the detective now, “and he had the blue-print you’ve been talking about.  I had told him Jack Bailey was here as the gardener and he said if I screamed he would tell that.  I was desperate.  I threatened him with the revolver but he took it from me.  Then when I tore the blue-print from him—­he was shot—­from the stairs—­”

“By Bailey!” interjected Beresford angrily.

“I didn’t even know he was in the house!” Bailey’s answer was as instant as it was hot.  Meanwhile, the Doctor had entered the room, hardly noticed, in the middle of Dale’s confession, and now stood watching the scene intently from a post by the door.

“What did you do with the blue-print?” The detective’s voice beat at Dale like a whip.

“I put it first in the neck of my dress—­” she faltered.  “Then, when I found you were watching me, I hid it somewhere else.”

Her eyes fell on the Doctor.  She saw his hand steal out toward the knob of the door.  Was he going to run away on some pretext before she could finish her story?  She gave a sigh of relief when Billy, re-entering with the key to the front door, blocked any such attempt at escape.

Mechanically she watched Billy cross to the table, lay the key upon it, and return to the hall without so much as a glance at the tense, suspicious circle of faces focused upon herself and her lover.

“I put it—­somewhere else,” she repeated, her eyes going back to the Doctor.

“Did you give it to Bailey?”

“No—­I hid it—­and then I told where it was—­to the Doctor—­” Dale swayed on her feet.  All turned surprisedly toward the Doctor.  Miss Cornelia rose from her chair.

The Doctor bore the battery of eyes unflinchingly.  “That’s rather inaccurate,” he said, with a tight little smile.  “You told me where you had placed it, but when I went to look for it, it was gone.”

“Are you quite sure of that?” queried Miss Cornelia acidly.

“Absolutely,” he said.  He ignored the rest of the party, addressing himself directly to Anderson.

“She said she had hidden it inside one of the rolls that were on the tray on that table,” he continued in tones of easy explanation, approaching the table as he did so, and tapping it with the box of sleeping-powders he had brought for Miss Cornelia.

“She was in such distress that I finally went to look for it.  It wasn’t there.”

“Do you realize the significance of this paper?” Anderson boomed at once.

“Nothing, beyond the fact that Miss Ogden was afraid it linked her with the crime.”  The Doctor’s voice was very clear and firm.

Anderson pondered an instant.  Then—­

“I’d like to have a few minutes with the Doctor alone,” he said somberly.

The group about him dissolved at once.  Miss Cornelia, her arm around her niece’s waist, led the latter gently to the door.  As the two lovers passed each other a glance flashed between them—­a glance, pathetically brief, of longing and love.  Dale’s finger tips brushed Bailey’s hand gently in passing.