Page:A M Williamson - The Motor Maid.djvu/188

172 "I should think it 's certain without looking. I 'd like to put the old serpent in prison."

"I wouldn't care to trouble, now I'm safe. And anyway, how could we prove she meant her sons to rob me, since they had n't begun the act, and so could n't be caught in it?"

"She did n't know you had a man to look after you. When the guide and I came this way, searching, we met a gipsy woman with two awful brutes, and asked if they 'd seen a young lady in a gray coat. They were all three on their way here, as you thought; but when they saw us close to this house, of course, they dared not carry out their plan, and the old woman made the best of a bad business. No doubt they 're as far off by this time as they could get. It might be difficult to prove anything, but I 'd like to try."

"I would n't," I said. "But let 's look for that rosary. Have you any matches?"

"Plenty." He took out a match-case, and held a wax vesta for me to peer about in the neighbourhood of the broken stairway.

"Here's something glittering!" I exclaimed, just as I had been about to give up the search in vain. "She said there was a silver crucifix."

I slipped my fingers into a crack where the rock had been split in breaking off the lower steps. A small, bright thing was there, almost buried in debris, but I could not get my fingers in deep enough to dislodge it. Impatiently I pulled out a hat-pin, and worked until I had unearthed—not the rosary, but a silver coin.