“An untamed wildcat—if you ask me,” chuckled Bill.
“Why, thanks a lot, William!” Dorothy’s hearers were abruptly aware of the changed quality of her voice as she continued to speak in melting tones of pained acceptance. “But nobody did ask you, darling, so in future when your betters are conversing, be good enough to button up that lip of yours!” She finished her withering tirade in the same quiet tones and with a positively shrinking demeanor that sent the others into shouts of laughter.
“Say, you’re Janet to a T!” cried Howard. “Her voice is always like that if I happen to hurt her feelings.”
“How about her hair, Howard? Is it long or short?”
“Oh, she wears it bobbed like yours.”
“I suppose,” Dorothy said to Mr. Sanborn, “that you want to smuggle me into the flat and have me change places with her?”
“That’s the idea exactly,” admitted the detective. “And I don’t want you to make your decision until I explain my plan in detail—or, rather, the necessity for the risk you will be taking.”
“Shoot—” said Miss Dixon, “but I can tell you right now, risk or no risk, I’m going through with it. Janet, after all she’s been through and from what Howard has told us, is bound to flop once she gets to Dr. Winn’s. Nervous, and probably high strung, the chances are against her being able to hold up under the strain.”
“I think you are right about that. But although Janet is in serious danger, she could be rescued and her father guarded without bringing you into the picture, Dorothy, if it were not for one thing. These men who hold Janet in their custody are in some way mixed up with Dr. Winn, who has undertaken to make some very important experiments for the United States government.”
“I make a bet that he is Number 1 of the gang!” ventured Bill, the irrepressible.