"Mrs. Bunce," he said, "if I were you I would admit I found the bills myself, otherwise it may be awkward for you when we have to put you and your servant on the stand to prove where they were found. This gentleman and myself will not say anything about this conversation and there will be no trouble if you simply tell the truth about it." The woman broke down finally and began whining something about a poor woman not being allowed to keep what she found in her own house and what belonged to her by right, but Miles did not wait to listen but left the house, I following him. Once alone with him again I could not restrain the expression of my disappointment. "That was a very clever piece of work, indeed," I said, "but unfortunately does the case of Winters harm instead of good." "How?" he asked. "Why, the missing bills having now been accounted for," I answered, "there is nothing to show that any one else was on the scene that night or to furnish a motive for the crime, and so there remains no one but Winters to whom suspicion can attach." "You don't look at it properly," he answered; "the most important thing incidental to the discovery of the money is the fact that its effect will be to substantiate Winters's statement." I looked at him inquiringly, and seeing I did not comprehend, he explained. "White evidently took all the money with him, carelessly stuffed in the outside pocket of his ulster, when he went out that night and he might easily have dropped one of the bills in the vestibule: such being the case, Winters's statement that he found it there becomes not only reasonable, but probable." I saw the force of this at once, and was rejoiced at it: but at the same time I was more perplexed than ever by the situation it disclosed. "If White," I asked, expressing my doubts to Miles, "took all the money out with him that night, as you say, what motive remains to explain the murder?" "We have got to find a new motive," he answered, "and when we do find it, I am much mistaken if it does not disclose a deeper planned scheme and a cleverer hand than we have anticipated." My interest was keenly aroused and I was ready at once to enter into the new aspect of the case, but Miles would not have it so. "Wait till to-morrow, Mr. Dallas," he said; "you are tired, and had better seek some amusement this evening," and bidding me good-bye, he left me. I recognized the virtue of his advice and acted on it, for after all enough had been done for one day. CHAPTER IX A CLUE AND A CONFERENCE A week had elapsed since the happening of the events related in the last chapter, and I sat with Littell and Van Bult in one of the private rooms of a quiet downtown restaurant, where we had been lunching together by my invitation.