"I'm afraid we weren't expecting you, sir," said the butler apologetically. "Miss Ocky is dining at Mrs. Bolt's. I'll have something ready for you in about half-an-hour, sir. Will that be all right, sir?"
"Fine, Bates; thank you."
"A judgment on me for my sins of omission!" he told himself philosophically. "I should have stayed on the job at the office."
He went and put his head in at the dining-room door, where Merrill had just commenced his solitary dinner. The young man signaled to him instantly that he had a communication to make. Bates had vanished to the upper floor with his bag, and when Creighton had assured himself that there was no one in the pantry, he stepped quickly to Merrill's side.
"I wanted to tell you that Miss Copley and the Mackay woman had a long talk in Miss Copley's room very late last night—or early this morning, rather. It was nearly four o'clock when Janet went to bed. They were talking about something very—well, fiercely. Almost quarreling. I couldn't make out the words. That's all, sir; I should really have reported this to you over the wire."
"So you should, my boy, so you should," muttered Creighton absently. "No harm done this time, fortunately."
He slipped away before the butler should return, and went out to the veranda to wait until something had been prepared for him. He was glad of the brief opportunity to be alone with his thoughts.
Merrill's latest bit of information was disturbing in the extreme—so disturbing that he had to force his mind to consider a possibility from which it shrank aghast. The two women had "talked fiercely." They had "almost quarreled." What about? A hypothetical answer came to him so ugly that it chilled him to the bone.
Granted that Janet Mackay, from motives yet obscure, had killed Simon Varr, had Miss Ocky somehow learned the truth and become an accessory after the crime? Swayed by her dislike of Simon and her friendship for her companion of a score of years, had she condoned a crime and helped a murderess to escape? What was that she had once said? "Janet and I are fearfully responsible for each other!"
Oof! He took out his handkerchief and vigorously rubbed at the moist palms of his hands.