“I’m glad to hear it, dear. We’ll check up on your father when he returns. I’m your friend, you know. Don’t let the matter prey on your mind.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Lawson. I’ll try to do as you say.” Dorothy thought she was going then, but it seemed that the woman had still another question that she had been holding back.
“When you are in this somnambulistic state,” she said, “when you are sleepwalking, I mean, doesn’t it terrify you to awaken and find yourself out of your bed?”
Dorothy frowned and seemed puzzled. “Perhaps it would,” she admitted. “But then, you see, I can’t remember ever wakening while I was walking during the night. I must sleep very soundly. At school the night watchman or one of the teachers would frequently find me walking about the building. They would lead me back to bed, or just tell me to go there, and I would always obey. Until they told me about it next day, I knew nothing of course. That’s how I got onto the business of the slippers, you see.”
“Oh, yes. I wondered how you’d been able to check on it. Well, I must trot along now and let you get to work. Until luncheon then, my dear.”
She was gone at last and Dorothy made a face at the closed door. “Of all the plausible hypocrites I’ve ever met,” she muttered, “you certainly take the well known chocolate cake!”
She sat down at the typewriter desk, pulled out the machine, and slipped in two sheets of paper and a carbon that she found in one of the drawers. Halfway through a perusal of Mrs. Lawson’s first page, she looked up. The door opened quickly and Mr. Tunbridge came into the room.
“I’ve just a moment,” he prefaced hurriedly. “They mustn’t find me here. What was the row in the library?”
Dorothy explained briefly.
“Fine! Put you through the hoops, eh? I had a good idea she would do something of the kind. You came out of a difficult situation with flying colors, I take it. But be careful about run-ins with Lawson. He’s a slick article—in fact, the two of them are a pair of the slickest articles it’s ever been my misfortune to run across. And they’re going it hammer and tongs in the library right now. I was a bit worried about you, that’s why I took this chance.”