"Me?... I ain't teched none o' yoah things, 'cep'n to dus' 'em and lay
'em down whar I foun' 'em," Belle retorted, mournfulness submerged in
anger.
Dundee looked about the room, then his eyes alighted upon the missing
book, lying upon a shelf that extended across the top of an
old-fashioned hot-air register, set high in the wall between the two
windows. The thick red volume lay close against the wall, its
gold-lettered "rib" facing the room.
"Belle, tell me the truth, and I shall not be angry: did you put that
red book on that shelf?" Dundee asked, his voice steady and kindly in
spite of his excitement.
"Nossuh! I ain't teched it!"
"And you did not put the cover over my parrot's cage, although I had
tipped you well to feed Cap'n and cover him at night," Dundee said
severely.
"I gotta heap o' wuk to do----"
"And you say that Mr. Wilson, one of the two young men on the second
floor, left the front door unlocked when he came in last night?" Dundee
asked. "Does he admit it?"
"Yassuh," Belle told him sulkily. "He say he was tiahed when he got home
'long 'bout midnight, an' he clean fo'got to turn de key in de do' an'
shoot de bolt."
"Thanks, Belle. That will be all now," and Dundee did a great deal to
dispel the chambermaid's gloom by presenting her with a dollar bill.
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