Page:The Clue of the Twisted Candle (1916).djvu/252

"My scissors," she said huskily; "you won't think—"

She stared up at him, fear and indignation struggling for mastery.

"I don't think you committed the murder," he smiled; "if that's what you mean to ask me, but if anybody else found those scissors and had identified this handkerchief you would have been in rather a fix, my young friend."

She looked at the scissors and shuddered.

"I did kill—something," she said in a low voice, "an awful dog ... I don't know how I did it, but the beastly thing jumped at me and I just stabbed him and killed him, and I am glad," she nodded many times and repeated, "I am glad."

"So I gather—I found the dog and now perhaps you'll explain why I didn't find you?"

Again she hesitated and he felt that she was hiding something from him.

"I don't know why you didn't find me," she said; "I was there."