The Crimson Patch

captain was too upset and nervous and unstrung by the occurrence to comment on the subject, for a time, and Patricia too bewildered and unhappy to ask any q

nything important about these sketches? I never dreamed of such a thi

well, vital! I never told you about it, because it's safer for you and best all around that you know as little as possible of my a

is so important, Daddy, and why didn't you keep it safely locked up? I

lent reason for doing just as I did about it. Had I kept an important secret always 72about my person, or even under lock and key, it would, as a rule, be in far greater danger of discovery than if carefully concealed in some such fashion as this and left around as if there were noth

ing every detail she could remember. The captain listened intently

stinctly remember seeing the Crimson Patch among the

urious name and I told her it was 73given because of the

came in contact with those sketches, and any one of the four may have been the guilty party who took it. Your littl

he was driving at. "I would rather be suspected myself than have any one dream she could do such

but you must certainly see how easy it would be for her to slip

sted Patricia, "and they never once were near you

rned on her during all the

down on the couch pill

ind and mean to have such susp

y trying to sift the thing to the bottom. Let's leave her, for a moment, however. You say Madame Vanderpoel was the next one in. Sh

she could look at them, placed her 75sewing on the tabl

n near where they were on t

d to move it once, in order to see o

rimson Patch was among those s

ork at the time,—something that had gone wrong,—and I didn't particularl

ff with it," he went on. "Of course, I don't say she did, but she mi

nd laughed over their names and said they were 'bully good stuff.' I saw him practically every minute of the time, except for two second

for him," commented Captain Meade. "So he isn't eliminated, either. B

m, when he came in, in what I thought was the stupidest fashion, and I made him take it right up while I cleared them all aside. I believe he could have slipped the sketch under hi

ether that particular sketch

Purple Dart was uppermost when I moved them out of h

ise a breeze about its disappearance. I had thought that perhaps you might find out from your friend the Belgian 78girl whether by any chance it had slipped in with her own by mistake. But that must be done later and done with the greatest caution or the fat will be in the fire. And it's too late to order anything brought to the room, or I might have a chance to interview ou

sleep visited the unhappy Patricia for t