"You want to borrow my name and my kid sister?" Jimmy Randolph had chortled. "Hop to it, old sport! But you might tell me what you want with such intimate belongings of mine."
"You may not know it," Dundee had retorted, "but young Mr. James Wadley Randolph, Jr., scion of the famous old Boston family, is going to visit that equally famous school, Forsyte-on-the-Hudson, to see whether it is the ideal finishing school for his beloved young sister, Barbara.... She's about fifteen now, isn't she, Jimmy?"
"Going on sixteen, and one of Satan's prize hellions," Jimmy Randolph had answered. "The family would be eternally grateful if you could get Forsyte to take her, but make them promise not to have any more chorus girls who plan to get murdered, as directors of their amateur theatricals. Bab would be sure to be mixed up in the mess.... I suppose that's the job you're on, you flat-footed dick, you!"
The second telephone call had secured an appointment at the Forsyte School for "Mr. James Wadley Randolph, Jr., of Boston," and Dundee, rather relishing his first need for such professional tactics, relaxed to enjoy the ten-mile drive along the Hudson.
It was a quarter to twelve when his taxi swept up the drive toward the big grey-stone, turreted building, sedately lonely in the midst of its valuable acres.
"Miss Earle says to come to the office," a colored maid told him, when he had given his borrowed name, and led him from the vast hall to a fairly large room, whose windows looked upon a tennis court, and whose walls were almost covered with group pictures of graduating classes, photographs of amateur theatrical performances, and portrait studies of alumnae.
A very thin, sharp-faced woman of about forty, with red-rimmed eyes which peered nearsightedly, rose from an old-fashioned roll-top desk and came forward to greet him.
"I am Miss Earle, Miss Pendleton's private secretary," she told him, as he shook her bony, clammy hand. "I should have told you when you telephoned this morning that both Miss Pendleton and Miss Macon sailed for Europe yesterday. We always have our commencement the last Tuesday in May, you know.... But if there is anything I can do for you——"
"I should like to know something at first hand of the history of the school, its—well, prestige, special advantages, curriculum, and so on," Dundee began deprecatingly.
"I should certainly be able to answer any question you may wish to ask, Mr. Randolph, since I have been with the school for fifteen years," Miss Earle interrupted tartly.