Page:Arthur Stringer--The House of Intrigue.djvu/345

325 early last night she died. I wasn't allowed to show myself, but I suppose that's what all the row was about. They'd been keeping me locked in, you see. But when every one else was so busy, and the whole house seemed to have gone crazy, I saw my chance to get away and send a message to Michael!"

"Then it was you who took Wendy Washburn's car?" I exclaimed.

"It was standing there when I slipped out of the house. And the only thing that worried me was that I wasn't able to get my things out of the wall-safe!"

"What things?" I demanded.

"I'd sent word to my bankers to send up certain securities of mine which I knew they held. Then I had the safety-deposit people send up all the family jewelry. When these came back they were all put in the wall-safe."

"But what did you intend doing with these securities and this jewelry?" I asked. She seemed to be contentedly purring at the thought of her own rare ingenuity. But, under the circumstances, I couldn't see my way clear to sharing in that purr.

"I knew Michael and I would need them!" she said with the utmost simplicity.

I felt, at the precise moment, that what she needed