"What is it?" snapped Creighton, wheeling upon her. "What is the matter?"
"It's all so ghastly—so—so cold-blooded!" she managed to stammer. "Don't mind me. I'm all right."
"Um," said Creighton, eyeing her doubtfully. "You come into the house and get a rest before dinner! Good-day, Mr. Sherwood!"
He carried his point without much difficulty. He hovered over Miss Ocky until he had her safely in the house and on her way to her room, and for once her militant spirit seemed burned out. He reproached himself bitterly for having let her listen to Sherwood, though nobody could have foreseen that the noodle-pated idiot would start embroidering his story with graphically gruesome tidbits! Why hadn't he kept his fat head shut? Serve him right if Norvallis jumped him next and put him in the jug for political prestige! For a few minutes Creighton was almost cheerful as he pondered that possibility.
Fortunately for his peace of mind, Miss Ocky reappeared for dinner and impressed him as having entirely regained her composure. She was her usual gently mocking, always slightly cynical and amusing self. As the swift conversation flashed back and forth between them—past the apparently unconscious person of young Mr. Merrill—he gradually recovered his own equanimity and was quite himself again by the time he and Miss Ocky settled to coffee and cigarettes in the cozy corner of the veranda.
"Almost time for Mr. Krech to make his evening call," she suggested. "They dine earlier at the Bolts' than we do here."
"Queer thing about Krech," mused Creighton. "I've never seen him take so little interest in a case as he does in this. Usually he is at my heels from morning until night, spraying questions the way a machine-gun sprays bullets. Now he just blows in—and presently blows out."
"Oh!" said Miss Ocky. She sat up straight, scratched her chin meditatively with one slim forefinger, and darted him a look that he missed. "Mmph. Y-yes, that is queer."
"Of course he's devoted to his wife," continued the detective, "and I suppose that distracts a man from the pursuit of a mere hobby."
"Briefly," said Miss Ocky. "Briefly!"