'Arthur, in a crazy fit, had secreted the diamonds, and Jerrie knew it,
but possibly not where he had put them. This accounted for her strange
sickness when a child, while her finding them later on, added to other
causes, would account for her sickness now. Peterkin owns that he was
blowing her up for something, and that he knocked the table down with
his fist, but he swears he didn't touch her,' Tom said, repeating in
substance all Peterkin had said to him in the train when shaking with
fear of a _writ_.
'And do you still mean to keep silent with regard to Jerrie?' Tom asked.
'Yes,' Harold replied; 'her name must not be mentioned in connection
with the diamonds. I can't have the slightest breath of suspicion
touching Jerrie, _my sister_.'
'Sister be hanged!' Tom began savagely, then checked himself, and added
with a sneering laugh: 'Don't try to deceive me, Hal, with your sister
business. You love Jerrie, and she loves you, and that is one reason why
I hate you, or shall, when this miserable business is cleared up. Just
now we must pull together and find out where she found the diamonds, and
who put them there. To write to Uncle Arthur would do no good, though
seeing him might; the last we heard he was thinking of taking the coast
voyage from San Francisco to Tacoma.
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