"The person who stooped wore a long red cloak. Probably you
preceded your daughter, Mrs. Watkins."

The lady thus brought to the point made a quick gesture towards the
girl who suddenly stood still, and, with a rising colour in her
cheeks, answered, with some show of resolution on her own part:

"You say your name is Gryce and that you have a right to address me
thus pointedly on a subject which you evidently regard as serious.
That is not exact enough for me. Who are you, sir? What is your
business?"

"I think you have guessed it. I am a detective from Headquarters.
What I want of you I have already stated. Perhaps this young lady
can tell me what you cannot. I shall be pleased if this is so."

"Caroline"--Then the mother broke down. "Show the gentleman what
you picked up from the lobby floor last night."

The girl laughed again, loudly and with evident bravado, before
she threw the cloak back and showed what she had evidently been
holding in her hand from the first, a sharp-pointed, gold-handled
paper-cutter.

"It was lying there and I picked it up. I don't see any harm in
that."

"You probably meant none. You couldn't have known the part it
had just played in this tragic drama," said the old detective