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“And where was Miss Cutler? How?”

“So,” and the Chinaman crouched over the place as one might who was intently examining an unconscious body. With his long yellow fingers, he made motions of extracting a small object from the hand—and so graphic was he that Glenn was horrified.

“Missee Barrum here,” and Charley explained, as if he feared his dumb show was not intelligible; “Missee Cutler lean over—so—and pick Luckee from dead lady’s fingers.”

“Where were you?” Hutchins asked, sternly.

“Here,” and Charley rose and hurried to the little back hall. Then, standing just outside the partly open door, he peeped around it, as if spying on the scene he had just portrayed.

“I can’t seem to think this is all made up,” Hutchins said to Glenn, in a breathless aside, “and yet it is incredible. Do you suppose Pearl Jane”

“Killed Mrs. Barham? I do not!” and Glenn looked positive “But I believe this dumb show business. Charley never invented all that. Moreover, Locke is after that lucky piece—or whatever it is—and Charley, who is all devotion to him, wants to get it for him.”

“When you get it, Charley,” Hutchins said, “how will you get it to Mr. Locke?”

But now the shrewd look returned. “I do,” was all the reply Hutchins could obtain. `

“I was pretty sure that girl was mixed up in the affair somehow,” Hutchins said, reflectively, as he looked at Glenn.

“She could be mixed up in it and yet be entirely innocent of crime,” Glenn persisted, for his heart had been caught in the tangles of Pearl Jane’s bobbed hair.

“She could. And if you feel that way about it, you’d better not go with me over to her place—which is where