CHAPTER XXIV
WARDROP’S STORY
“I HAVE to go back to the night Miss Jane disappeared—and that’s another thing that has driven me desperate. Will you tell me why I should be suspected of having a hand in that, when she had been a mother to me? If she is dead, she can’t exonerate me; if she is living, and we find her, she will tell you what I tell you—that I know nothing of the whole terrible business.”
“I am quite certain of that, Wardrop,” I interposed. “Beside, I think I have got to the bottom of that mystery.”
Margery looked at me quickly, but I shook my head. It was too early to tell my suspicions.
“The things that looked black against me were bad enough, but they had nothing to do with Miss Jane. I will have to go back to before the night she—went away, back to the time Mr. Butle
