“I’ve a notion to call up and see who it is,” she mused. “I am going to devote myself to searching out the murderer, and while I don’t, of course, dream that Eleanor had anything to do with it, yet—she is Italian,—and suppose she is mixed up with some secret society—oh—well—I’ll have to call that number or never rest. I might as well do it now.”
Unwilling to take a chance of being overheard in the house, Avice dressed for the street and went out. She said to a maid in the hall, “If any one asks, say I’ve gone out for a little breath of air.”
Glad of a walk in the sunshine, she went to the nearest public telephone booth and called the number. She had a queer feeling of doing wrong, but she persuaded herself that her motive was a right one.
“Hello,” she heard a man’s hearty voice say.
“Hello,” she returned, thoroughly frightened now, but not willing to back out. “Who is this, please?”
“Lindsay, Jim Lindsay; who wants me?”
“But,—but,——” Avice was at her wits’ end what to say, “are you—do you know—that is, are you a friend of Mrs. Black? Eleanor Black?”
“Don’t know the lady. Is this Mrs. Black?”
“No; but you must know her. She—she talked to you last Tuesday night, late—very late.”
“Tuesday night? Oh, I wasn’t here Tuesday night. A chum of mine had my rooms; Landon—Kane Landon,—”