Seeing that I should gain nothing by my present course, I reseated myself, bestowing upon him a decidedly ambiguous smile as I did so.
"You acknowledge then," said I, "that the old maid can tell you something after all. I thought you regarded all my efforts in the light of a jest. What has made you change your mind?"
"Madam, I decline to bandy words. Have you found those rings, or have you not?"
"I have _not_," said I, "but neither have you, and as that is what I wanted to make sure of, I will now take my leave without further ceremony."
Mr. Gryce is not a profane man, but he allowed a word to slip from him which was not entirely one of blessing. He made amends for it next moment, however, by remarking:
"Madam, I once said, as you will doubtless remember, that the day would come when I should find myself at your feet. That day has arrived. And now is there any other little cherished fact known to the police which you would like to have imparted to you?"
"You are very good," I rejoined, "but I will not trouble you for any _facts_,--_those_ I am enabled to glean for myself; but what I should like you to tell me is this: Whether if you came upon those rings in the possession of a person known to have been on the scene of crime at the time of its perpetration, you would not consider them as an incontrovertible proof of guilt?"
"Undoubtedly," said he, with a sudden alteration in his manner which warned me that I must muster up all my strength if I would keep my secret till I was quite ready to part with it.
"Then," said I, with a resolute movement towards the door, "that's the whole of my business for to-day. Good-morning, Mr. Gryce; to-morrow I shall expect you."
He made me stop though my foot had crossed the threshold; not by word or look but simply by his fatherly manner.
"Miss Butterworth," he observed, "the suspicions which you have entertained from the first have within the last few days assumed a definite form. In what direction do they point?--tell me."
Some men and most women would have yielded to that imperative _tell me_! But there was no yielding in Amelia Butterworth. Instead of that I treated him to a touch of irony.
"Is it possible," I asked, "that you think it worth while to consult _me_? I thought your eyes were too keen to seek assistance from mine. You are as confident as I am that Howard Van Burnam is innocent of the crime for which you have arrested him."