Her eyes became hard, and she assumed a stony expression.
"There is no lady in the house but myself."
"Not a lady who lost what you are looking for?"
This time she was thrown off her guard, and became as red as her hair. She tried to carry off her confusion with rudeness.
"I don't know what you're talking of," she said, with a stamp and a frown! "you can just clear away off our land, or I'll set the dogs on you."
"I see.
You keep dogs, do you?
Bloodhounds probably?"
"How do you know that?" asked Miss Franklin, staring. "Yes, we do keep bloodhounds, and they will tear you to pieces if you don't go."
"You seem to forget that this is a civilized country," said Giles quietly. "If you set your dogs on me, I shall set the police on you."
"The police!" She seemed startled, but recovered herself. "I don't care for the police," she declared defiantly.
"You might not, but Walter Franklin might."
"Who is he?
Never heard of him."
"Never heard of your uncle?" said Giles, and then wondered how he could let her know that he had heard it without confessing to the eavesdropping.
It suddenly occurred to him that Franklin had—he supposed—on the previous day made a confidant of Morley.
This supposition he took advantage of. "Mr. Morley told me that your father had mentioned his brother."
The girl started and thought for a moment.
"Oh, you mean Uncle Walter," she said, after a pause. "Yes, but we never talk of him."
This little speech did not ring quite true.
It seemed as though the girl wished to back up the saying of her father, whether she believed it or not.
"Is that why you pretended ignorance?" he asked.
"That was why," replied Miss Franklin, with brazen assurance.
She was lying.
Giles felt certain of that, but he could not bring the untruth home to her.
He suddenly reverted to the main object of his interview, which had to do with the possibility of Anne being in the Priory.
"What about that coin you are looking for?"
"I am looking for no coin," she replied, quite prepared for him. "I lost a brooch here.
Have you found it?"
"Yes," replied Giles, his eyes watchfully on her face. "It is an Edward VII. coin in the form of a brooch."
He thought Miss Franklin would contradict this, but she was perfectly equal to the occasion.
"You must have found it, since you know it so well. Please give it to me."
"I have left it at home," he answered, although it was lying in his pocket-book, and that next his heart. "I will give it to you to-morrow if you tell me from whom you got it."
"I found it," she confessed, "in the churchyard."
"Ah!" A sudden light flashed into the darkness of Ware's mind.
"By the grave of that poor girl who was murdered?" "I don't know of any murdered girl," retorted Miss Franklin, and looked uneasy, as though she were conscious of making a mistake.
"Yes you do, and you know the lady who cleans the stone and attends to the grave.
Don't deny the truth."
Miss Franklin looked him up and down, and shrugged her clumsy shoulders.
"I don't know what you are talking about," she declared, and with that turned on her heel. "Since you will not take yourself off like a gentleman, I'll go myself"; and she went.
"Don't set the bloodhounds on me," called out Giles.
But she never turned her head; simply went on with a steady step until she was lost in the gloom of the wood.
Giles waited for a time.
He had an idea that she was watching. By-and-by the feeling wore off, and knowing by this time that he was quite alone, he also departed.
He was beginning to doubt Franklin, for this girl had evidently something to conceal.
He was sure that Anne was being sheltered in the house, and that it was Anne who cleaned the gravestone.
Perhaps George Franklin was giving her shelter since she had helped his rascal of a brother to escape.
Thus thinking, he went through the wood with the intention of going home.
A glance at his watch told him it was after eight.
Suddenly it occurred to him that it would be a good time to pay a visit to the graveyard and see if anything new had been done to the grave.