Part 13 (2/2)
”Oh, madame! Why did you not take them at once to Mr Dayton?”
”I was too scared I was alar
Was he cross?”
”Oh, I had later a bad quarter of an hour”
”I am sorry And now you are quite free to tellis not forbidden in the decalogue”
”What about false witness?” cried the countess, around, but,” said Mrs Merton, ”I do not defend hed ”You did it admirably, and for a half-day I was in doubt In fact, to confess, I was in such distress that I did not knohat to do The resuht to have been h to take the papers home”
”But why did you not arrest lass for an answer? You were--well, a lady, your people loyal, and I was frantic for a day I hesitated until I saw you driving toward the Bois de Boulogne in a storm What followed you know”
”Yes”
”You concealed the papers, and the police for a while thought you had burned them You were clever”
”Not very,” said Mrs Merton ”I tried to burn all the big double envelops, but the men hurried me”
”I see,” returned the count ”Your ruse, if it was that, deceived thes, and then the papers somehoere removed And here my curiosity reaches a climax It puzzled me for years, and, as I know, has puzzled the police”
”But why?” asked I
”The pistol-shots were, of course, believed to have been a uard The old caretaker was found in her rooreatly alarmed at the cries and the shots, and for a while would not open the door”
Mrs Merton laughed ”Ah, e of the house never left it, or so he said, and the doors, all of them, were locked”
”Indeed!” I exclaimed ”That dear old nurse”
”The police found no trace of what ht have been present if a man had entered--I mean muddy footmarks in the house”
”No,” I said; ”that was pure accident I took offexcept the noise they ht make”
”And,” remarked Le Moyne, ”of course any footprints there were outside had been partly worn away by the rain None of any use were found, and besides for days the police had traarden”
”Not to leave you puzzled,” said Merton, ”and really itthat Greville tell you the whole story”
”With pleasure,” I said ”Colonel Merton and I were the burglars”; and thereupon I related our adventure
”No one suspected you,” said the count; ”but what astonishes s as easily burned as papers I see now, but even after the ashes were thrown about by you, the police refused to believe they could have been used to safeguard papers I should like to tell your story to our old chief of police He is now retired”