by Mary Roberts Rinehart and Avery Hopwood

“ In the weak glow of the little taper, whose tiny flame illuminated but a portion of the living-room, his face looked tense and strained.
"It's pretty nearly hopeless," he said, "if all the walls are paneled like that." ”

“ He didn't want any living being to know about that room.'"
Now Dale was as excited as he.
"Then you think the money is in this hidden room?"
"I do," said Brooks decidedly. "I don't think Fleming took it away with him. He was too shrewd for that. No, he meant to come back all right, the minute he got the word the bank had been looted. And he'd fixed things so I'd be railroaded to prison—you wouldn't understand, but it was pretty neat. And then the fool nephew rents this house the minute he's dead, and whoever knows about the money——"
"Jack! Why isn't it the nephew who is trying to break in?" ”

“ The fact is that the criminal takes care of the big and important factors. It's only the little ones he may overlook. To go back to your friend the Bat, it's because of his skill in little things that he's still at large."
"Then you don't think there's a chance that the money from the Union Bank is in this house?" persisted Miss Cornelia. ”

“ I believe in you absolutely!" she said. He caught her in his arms and kissed her—gratefully—passionately. Then the galling memory of the predicament in which he stood—the hunt already on his trail—came back to him. ”

“ Anderson seemed to run through a mental Rogues Gallery of other criminals named Elizabeth Allen that he had known.
"How old are you?" he proceeded.
Lizzie looked at her mistress despairingly. "Have I got to answer that?" she wailed. Miss Cornelia nodded inexorably.
Lizzie braced herself. "Thirty-two," she said, with an arch toss of her head.
The detective looked surprised and slightly amused.
"She's fifty if she's a day," said Miss Cornelia treacherously in spite of a look from Lizzie that would have melted a stone. ”