“Yes, I think it could have been Mr. Landon, or Mr. Stryker, or the President of the United States. There isn’t anybody I don’t think it could have been! I tell you the voice was purposely disguised. Sort of squeaky and high pitched. So can’t you see that it was really a man with a natchelly low voice? You detectives make me tired! I give you the straight goods that it was a disguised voice, and so, unreckonizable. Then you all come round and say, ‘was it this one?’ ‘was it that one?’ I tell you I don’t know. If I’d a known whose voice it was, I’d a told at the inquest. I ain’t one to keep back the weels of justice, I ain’t!”
“Never mind the voice then. Tell me again of those queer words——”
“Oh, for the land’s sake! I wish I’d never heard ’em! Well, one was stephanotis,—got that? It’s a very expensive puffume, and the next man that asks me about it, has got to gimme a bottle. I had a bottle onct——”
“I know, I know,” said Duane, hastily, “that’s how you came to know the name.”
“Yep. Now, go on to the Caribbean Sea.” The blonde looked cross and bored. “No, I don’t know why anybody invited Mr. Trowbridge to the Caribbean; if I had I’d been most pleased to tell long ago. But somebody did. I heard it as plain as I hear you now. Yes, I’m sure it was the Caribbean Sea, and not the Medtranean nor the Red Sea nor the Bay of Oshkosh! So there, now. Anything else this morning?”
“How pettish you are!”
“And so would you be if everybody was a pesterin’ you about them old words. Can I help it if the man talked Greek? Can I help it if he squeaked his voice so’s I couldn’t reckonize it? I gave my testimony and it was all recorded. Why can’t you read that over and let me alone, I’d like to know!”
But after a pleasant little gift of a paper, fresh from the United States Bureau of Engraving and Printing, Miss Wilkinson grew a little more sunny tempered.
“No,” she said, in answer to Duane’s last question, “I can’t quite remember whether the voice said he had set a trap or somebody else had set one. But I’m positive he said one or the other. And he said the trap was set for Mr. Trowbridge,—whoever set it.”