Lawson flung the weeping girl into an arm chair where she lay apparently half stunned and shaking in every limb.
“Double-cross, nothing!” he snapped at his wife. “How do you get that way, Laura? I came in here just now and found Janet in the room.”
“Was she at the safe?”
“No, she wasn’t. She was standing in the middle of the floor. Making her getaway without a doubt when I turned on the lights.”
“Why do you pretend Janet opened the safe? The Doctor, you and I are the only ones who know the combination. Laugh that off if you can, my dear!”
They were both fast losing their tempers.
“Combination or no combination, the safe was open when I got here,” he snarled. “She was after the formula, of course. That father of hers is in back of it. That Irishman is the double-crosser—and how! Figured on working Winnite into his racket without coughing up a cent for it, either. Call me a sucker if you like, Laura. I qualify, and so do you, for that matter. The other stuff’s the bunk.”
Dorothy stopped her pretended crying and lay back as though utterly exhausted. She knew Tunbridge must be up and about. What in the world could the man be doing?
Mrs. Lawson who seemed to be weighing matters, slowly unbuttoned her coat. “If you are so blameless,” she said coldly to her husband, “How do you happen to be here at all? Your part of the job was to bring up the car—or the plane, if it had stopped snowing.”
“Well, it’s no longer snowing, my dear, and the plane is just where it should be. I got tired of waiting, that’s why. Thought there must be a slip-up. You were due out there half an hour ago.”