"I say that she was here and that she left suddenly when I came, so suddenly that she hadn't even time to take her hat!" said Boller's charming wife. "Where she is now I don't know; not in this apartment because I've searched it; probably somewhere else in the house, because she would be unlikely to leave without a hat. But she was here, and if you doubt it, ask those men!"
Slowly, Dalton turned back to Anthony Fry. One glance he sent down at the automatic and his finger settled over the trigger.
And still the calm held Anthony.
It was one of the most curious things he had ever experienced, that calm, and more curious than the calm itself was the astounding capacity for thought that had come to his tired brain. Except for this last inexplicable accusation, which he discarded, he was thinking lucidly, and swiftly and, by the way, along a single line. Mary was all that mattered just now.
And to some extent, if Fate remained kind, he saw his way to saving Mary, should the girl have sense enough to remain quiet in his room. He smiled, did Anthony, and looked so confidently, so directly at Dalton that the latter scowled in bewilderment.
"I know nothing whatever about your son, Dalton," said he. "I did not even know that you had a son. Are you sure he is not at home?"
"He has not been at home for weeks," Hitchin put in. "That's what puzzles us; how did you get him to the city?"
"From what point?"
"Hillcombe, in the Adirondacks," Dalton said. "He——"
"Is it possible to get Hillcombe on the long distance?"