At that very moment, Mike O’Malley drove up to the house in his car, followed by a huge telephone repair truck!
Chapter XVI
While the House Burned ...
When Mrs. Fishberry left Helen Tower locked in the empty house on Saturday evening, to take a train back to Chicago, she was exceedingly pleased with herself. Everything had turned out wonderfully, she believed, and she would soon be married to a rich man. When the law suit was over she would go abroad with Ed—or perhaps join him abroad, for he seemed to think it was necessary to get out of the country immediately. Well, perhaps he was a little bit crooked——
But Mrs. Fishberry did not believe him to be as wicked as he really was. She thought that perhaps Linda Carlton had hit Helen with her autogiro, and though there was no real witness to the accident except Dorothy Crowley, Mrs. Fishberry did not consider it wrong to bribe someone to make up the testimony. After all, Linda Carlton must be rich; there was no reason why she shouldn’t part with some of her money. The girl was always winning prizes—probably without much effort on her part, Mrs. Fishberry believed.
She was so late getting into Chicago that night that she waited until Sunday noon to call Ed. She was anxious to tell him of her success, not only in obtaining the pictures and the records about his niece, but of securing the girl herself under lock and key. Ed would rejoice at the news, for he had not expected her to accomplish this feat before Sunday.
To her dismay, however, a strange voice answered the telephone in Ed’s apartment. When Mrs. Fishberry gave him her name, he explained that he was Leo Epstein, the lawyer whom Tower had employed to take charge of the damage suit against Linda Carlton.
“And I have sent a telegram to Miss Carlton, informing her of our intentions,” he said.
“In my name?” demanded Mrs. Fishberry.
“Yes, of course.”
“But I’m not married to Mr. Tower yet,” she protested. “It won’t be legal for me to sue Miss Carlton unless I’m the girl’s real aunt.”