I rush downstairs to the dining room carrying the stray hairpin I retrieved from the floor. Holding it in front of Mrs. Holtzer’s face, I exclaim, “I know now why you turned against me!”
She grips her neck in shock. “I don’t know what you are getting at, Matthew. What is that thing in your hand?”
Stuart leaves his chair and marches over behind hers. “Explain yourself, you... you dirty rat!” he shouts at me.
“Someone broke into my footlocker and took a personal notebook of mine, and also tore a page out of another notebook. And she dropped this hairpin on the floor! Now, who else could it have been? Who else in this house would possess a hairpin like this one?”
Mrs. Holtzer removes something from her hair and holds it up. “I use bobby pins like everyone else, young man.”
“That proves n
