She straightened up, alert, nervous. Suddenly, horror—a horror which fear had managed to keep from her till now—assailed her. A murderer! And free! Free to commit other murders! She started as a knock sounded upon the door. And, queerly, she didn't think of the police; she thought of the murderer of Beiner. It was with difficulty that she mastered herself sufficiently to answer the knock.
It was Mrs. Gerand. Miss Deane was wanted on the telephone. It was not a moment when Clancy wished to talk to any one. She wished to be alone, to study upon this new problem—the problem that should have been in her mind these past three days but that had only popped into it now. But the telephone issued commands that just now she dared not disobey. It might be Grannis or Vandervent. She ran down-stairs ahead of Mrs. Gerand. A booming voice, recognition of which came to her at once, greeted her.
"Hello!"
"Miss Deane? This is Judge Walbrough speaking."
"Oh, how do you do?" said Clancy. In her relief, she was extremely enthusiastic.
The deep voice at the other end of the wire chuckled.
"You know the meaning of the word 'palaver,' don't you, young woman? The happy way you speak, any one'd think I was a gay young blade like David Randall or Vandervent instead of an old fogy."
"'Old fogy!' Why, Judge Walbrough!"
Clancy's tone was rebuking, politely incredulous, amused—everything, in short, that a young girl's voice should be when a man just passing middle age terms himself "old." Walbrough chuckled again.