For a moment the girl seemed too much surprised to reply, then she answered with a show of indignation: “Really, Mr. French, this is too much! May I ask if you suspect me of the crime?” “Not of committing it,” French returned gravely, “but,” he leaned forward and gazed keenly into her eyes, “I do suspect you of knowing something about it. Could you not, Miss Duke, if you chose, put me on the track of the criminal?” “Oh, no, no, no!” the girl cried piteously, motioning with her hands as if to banish so terrible a thought from her purview. “How can you suggest such a thing? It is shameful and horrible!” “Of course, Miss Duke, I can’t make you answer me if you don’t want to. But I put it to you that it is worth your while thinking twice before you attempt to keep back information. Remember that if I am not satisfied, you may be asked these same questions in court, and then you will have to answer them whether you like it or not. Now I ask you once again, Why did you leave your taxi at Hatton Garden?” “I think it is perfectly horrible of you to make all these insinuations against me without any grounds whatever,” she answered a little tremulously. “There is no secret about why I stopped the taxi, and I have never made any mystery about it. Why it should have any importance I can’t imagine.” She paused, then with a little gesture as if throwing discretion to the winds, continued: “The fact is that as we were driving home I suddenly saw a girl in the street whom I particularly wished to meet. I stopped the cab and sent Mr. Harrington after her, but he missed her.” “Who was she?” “I don’t know; that is why I was so anxious to see her. I suppose you want the whole story?” She tossed her head and went on without waiting for him to reply. “Last summer I was coming up to town from Tonbridge, where I had been staying, and this girl and I had a carriage to ourselves. We began to talk, and became quite friendly. When they came to collect the tickets found I had lost mine. The man wanted to take my name, but the girl insisted on lending me the money to pay my fare. I wrote down her name and address on a scrap of paper so that I could return the money to her, but when I reached home I found I had lost the paper, and I stupidly had not committed the address to memory. I could not send her the money, and I don’t know what she must have thought of me. You can understand, therefore, my anxiety to meet her when I saw her from the cab.” “But why did you pay your fare a second time? You must have known that all you had to do was to give your name and address to the ticket collector.” “I suppose I did,” she admitted, “but I preferred to pay rather than have the trouble of explanations and probably letters to the head office.”