Free The Chase of the Golden Plate by Jacques Futrelle

eh?”
    â€œPolice headquarters, yes, sir.”
    Hatch tried to look like a detective, but a gleam of intelligence in his face almost betrayed him.
    â€œYou might intimate as much to Miss Meredith,” he instructed the maid calmly.
    The maid disappeared. Hatch went in and sat down in the reception-room, and said “Whew!” several times.
    â€œThe gold plate returned to Randolph last night by express,” he mused, “and she returned also, last night. Now what does that mean?”
    After a minute or so the maid reappeared to state that Miss Meredith would see him. Hatch received the message gravely and beckoned mysteriously as he sought for a bill in his pocketbook.
    â€œDo you have any idea where Miss Meredith was?”
    â€œNo, sir. She didn’t even tell Mrs. Greyton or her father.”
    â€œWhat was her appearance?”
    â€œShe seemed very tired, sir, and hungry. She still wore the masked ball costume.”
    The bill changed hands and Hatch was left alone again. There was a long wait, then a rustle of skirts, a light step, and Miss Dollie Meredith entered.
    She was nervous, it is true, and pallid, but there was a suggestion of defiance as well as determination on her pretty mouth. Hatch stared at her in frank admiration for a moment, then, with an effort, proceeded to business.
    â€œI presume, Miss Meredith,” he said solemnly, “that the maid informed you of my identity?”
    â€œYes,” replied Dollie weakly. “She said you were a detective.”
    â€œAh!” exclaimed the reporter meaningly, “then we understand each other. Now, Miss Meredith, will you tell me, please, just where you have been?”
    â€œNo.”
    The answer was so prompt and so emphatic that Hatch was a little disconcerted. He cleared his throat and started over again.
    â€œWill you inform me, then, in the interest of justice, where you were on the evening of the Randolph ball?” An ominous threat lay behind the words, Hatch hoped she believed.
    â€œI will not.”
    â€œWhy did you disappear?”
    â€œI will not tell you.”
    Hatch paused to readjust himself. He was going at things backward. When next he spoke his tone had lost the official tang—he talked like a human being.
    â€œMay I ask if you happen to know Richard Herbert?”
    The pallor of the girl’s face was relieved by a delicious sweep of colour.
    â€œI will not tell you,” she answered.
    â€œAnd if I say that Mr. Herbert happens to be a friend of mine?”
    â€œWell, you ought to be ashamed of yourself!”
    Two distracting blue eyes were staring him out of countenance; two scarlet lips were drawn tightly together in reproof of a man who boasted such a friendship; two cheeks flamed with indignation that he should have mentioned the name. Hatch floundered for a moment, then cleared his throat and took a fresh start.
    â€œWill you deny that you saw Richard Herbert on the evening of the masked ball?”
    â€œI will not.”
    â€œWill you admit that you saw him?”
    â€œI will not.”
    â€œDo you know that he was wounded?”
    â€œCertainly.”
    Now, Hatch had always held a vague theory that the easiest way to make a secret known was to intrust it to a woman. At this point he revised his draw, threw his hand in the pack, and asked for a new deal.
    â€œMiss Meredith,” he said soothingly after a pause, “will you admit or deny that you ever heard of the Randolph robbery?”
    â€œI will not,” she began, then: “Certainly I know of it.”
    â€œYou know that a man and a woman are accused of and sought for the theft?”
    â€œYes, I know that.”
    â€œYou will admit that you know the man was in Burglar’s garb, and that the woman was dressed in a Western costume?”
    â€œThe newspapers say that, yes,” she replied sweetly.
    â€œYou know, too, that Richard Herbert went to that ball in Burglar’s