“How dare you?” Both Calderon Fordyce and Duncan moved toward the enraged woman. No one paid the slightest attention to Marjorie and Paul Potter who entered at that moment, and stood regarding the tableau too surprised to speak. “I am telling the truth,” shrieked Kathryn. “Mr. Barnard and I both watched her take your ruby pendant.” There was dead silence as all eyes turned to Barnard. Quickly he decided; helped by the promise he read in Kathryn’s eyes: she would give him the codicil if he backed up her charge against Janet. Utterly unscrupulous himself, he never doubted that Marjorie, on impulse, had stolen the codicil; his intense egoism making him believe her past friendship for him had prompted the theft. With that codicil once safely in his possession he stood to win one hundred thousand dollars. He could depend on Kathryn’s dog-like fidelity if he showed her the slightest affection. Janet? Well, Janet could go in the discard. He cleared his throat nervously. “The nurse’s story is quite true,” he acknowledged sorrowfully. Calderon Fordyce staggered into the nearest chair, and Duncan paused irresolute, as remembrances crowded upon him. “We saw Miss Fordyce go over to that desk, press a spring, open the middle part, and take out the case,” went on Kathryn vindictively, after casting a grateful look on Barnard. He had not failed her. “She removed the ruby pendant, replaced the case, and left the room.” “It’s all a rotten lie!” gasped Tom. “It must be,” turning appealingly to Marjorie. But she stood silent. She had done her loyal best, she could do no more. The inevitable had happened. “Did you tell your daughter that you had the pendant, Fordyce?” asked Calhoun-Cooper, forgetting for the moment Joe’s prospective matrimonial plans. “Yes, I showed it to her.” “Anyone who reads the _Star_ knew father had the ruby,” said Duncan slowly. “But no outsider knew where your father kept the jewel,” interrupted Kathryn. “Suppose you look and see if it is gone,” suggested Duncan, and Calderon Fordyce rose and opened the secret drawer. A groan of horror escaped him on seeing the empty case. “Janet saw me place the case in there,” he gasped. “Her mother uses the secret drawer for many private documents and sometimes for her jewelry. Janet, my own dear daughter, a thief!” His agony was unconcealed. “Do not condemn Janet so soon,” said Paul Potter quietly. “The girl was acting under auto-suggestion.” CHAPTER XXVI UNCOVERED MARJORIE and the others gazed at the physician in stupefied silence. “I mean exactly what I said,” he went on. “The girl was hypnotized.” “She wasn’t asleep,” protested Kathryn. “Her eyes were wide open, and her manner was perfectly natural. She knew what she was about.”