Kennedy smiled seriously. "There, now," he nodded, "you're interviewing me."
Belle smiled back in turn, taking the hint. "I'm sure you'd be hard to interview, if you didn't want to be interviewed, Professor Kennedy," she said.
"How did you find out where she had gone—really?" I asked. "Tell us. It might help—and you remember what you said just a moment ago."
Belle considered an instant.
"Well," she thought, "I don't know as it would be violating any confidence, after all."
Kennedy, always thoughtful, had gradually edged our way into a sort of alcove.
"You see," she began, "first I tried to get at Doctor Lathrop himself. But I guess you must have been there first. He was barricaded, so to speak. I posed as a patient, tried to think up all kinds of ailments I could, just to get in. But he had an assistant who interviewed every patient. I think that fellow would make a medical detective. I thought I was clever, but he found me out and I was politely requested to step outside."
I glanced at Kennedy. Evidently Lathrop did not intend to talk. Was it wholly natural reticence?
"Then," resumed Belle to me, "I thought of our friend, Zona Dare. I remembered that she had been intimate with Vina Lathrop. Zona wouldn't say anything. But I didn't need that. From her I got the cue. I knew she was keeping something from me, just knew it—woman's intuition, I guess. I knew that Zona lived here at the Sainte-Germaine."
"But Mrs. Lathrop is alone," I hastened.