“Now, look here, Miss Austin, you keep quiet about all this, will you? I’ll call off those sleuths and I’ll arrange to close up and cover up the whole matter. Then, you marry me—there’s only a distant cousinship between us—and I’ll put up the biggest memorial to Waring you ever heard of.”
“Omit the clause about my marrying you,” she returned, “and I may agree to your plans. I haven’t quite decided what to do—and beside, Mr. Trask, who killed my—Doctor Waring?”
“Never mind who killed him. Call it suicide—it must have been anyway—”
“No—I’m not sure it was—oh, I don’t know what to do.”
“Time’s up,” called Fibsy through the closed door. “And, I say, Miss Austin, you take my tip, and come along and tell your story to F. Stone. It’ll be your best bet in the long run.”
Perhaps it was the boy’s speech, perhaps it was the gleam of disappointed greed that Anita saw in Trask’s eyes, but she rose, with a sudden decision, and said, as she opened the door:
“That’s just what I’ll do. Come with me, Mrs. Bates—or, would you rather not?”
“Oh, I can’t,” said Emily Bates, “don’t ask me, Anita, dear.”
“No, you stay here. I’ll come back soon.”
And so Miss Mystery again walked across the snow-covered field to the Waring house, this time to remove all occasion for using her nickname.