"I won't tell you." "What had the blue-prints to do with it ?" She could think of no plausible explanation but the true one.
"Because I'd heard there was a Hidden Room in this house." The detective leaned forward intently.

"Did you locate that room ?" Dale hesitated.

"No." "Then why did you burn the blue-prints ?" Dale's nerve was crumbling--breaking--under the repeated, monotonous impact of his questions.
"He burned them!" she cried wildly.

"I don't know why!" The detective paused an instant, then returned to a previous query.
"Then you didn't locate this Hidden Room ?" Dale's lips formed a pale "No." "Did he ?" went on Anderson inexorably.
Dale stared at him, dully--the breaking point had come.

Another question--another--and she would no longer be able to control herself.
She would sob out the truth hysterically--that Brooks, the gardener, was Jack Bailey, the missing cashier--that the scrap of blue-print hidden in the bosom of her dress might unravel the secret of the Hidden Room--that-- But just as she felt herself, sucked of strength, beginning to slide toward a black, tingling pit of merciful oblivion, Miss Cornelia provided a diversion.
"What's that ?" she said in a startled voice.
The detective turned away from his quarry for an instant.
"What's what ?" "I heard something," averred Miss Cornelia, staring toward the French windows.
All eyes followed the direction of her stare.