Suddenly, shadows appeared on one of the yellow rectangles. The shade was raised and framed in the window were Janet and Howard. Just behind them stood a stranger who wore the round, conventional collar of a clergyman. The young couple were smiling happily. Both waved, and Janet held up her left hand.
Dorothy knew the significance of that gesture, and threw them a kiss. Then she saw the shade roll down, and she turned away.
“And so they were married and lived happily ever after.” She sighed. “Uncle Sanborn kept his promise, like the fine old sport he is.”
She stuffed the last of Janet’s belongings into the trunk, slammed it shut and locked it.
“Now for the dirty work—and Laura Lawson.” She smiled grimly and went to the closet for Janet’s hat and coat.
Chapter VIII
“WALK INTO MY PARLOR”
The sedan, with Martin Lawson driving and Dorothy beside him, purred smoothly through the dank, cold night. Now that they were past the realm of traffic lights, it lopped off the miles between them and Ridgefield with the regularity of an electric saw cutting planks from a log.
During the entire journey, now nearly over, Dorothy had spoken no word to the man beside her. She wanted him to believe that she was still furiously angry. As a matter of fact, she had felt antagonistic toward him from the first moment she laid eyes upon him; his smug overgrooming, the highly polished fingernails, the small waxed moustache and too immaculate clothing, all repelled her. She knew at once what it had taken Janet some time to realize: Martin Lawson might be and probably was a very clever man; he was, on the other hand, a man to be wary of. His manner was just a little too complacent, too smooth. Notwithstanding the forewarning she had received regarding his character, Dorothy knew instinctively that he was not genuine and not a trustworthy person in any respect. She detested him thoroughly.
He was a careful driver, she gave him credit for that. They found little traffic to impede their progress along the Boston Post Road, once the long tentacles of the great city were left behind. But the black swath of highway leading out and on from their moisture-coated headlights glistened wetly in their reflection. After they turned into the hills behind Stamford, heading for the Connecticut Ridge Country, the road for a mile or more at a stretch was covered with wet leaves. They crawled along at a snail’s pace to prevent skidding and a crash into the New England stone fences that rambled along the roadside dividing woodland from the rolling meadows.
Just beyond New Canaan, they drove past Dorothy’s home and Bill Bolton’s, for the properties faced each other across the ridge road. Before they reached Vista it was raining dismally, and Lawson had the windshield wiper going. Dorothy was thankful that the sixty-mile journey from New York was nearly over. At last they reached the outskirts of Ridgefield, and the car swung into a driveway between high pillars of native stonework. In the glow from the electric globes on the gate posts, the blue stone driveway curved and twisted like a huge snake, winding through landscaped lawns and gardens as formal and precise as a public park.