“It’ll be legal by the time the case comes up. Those things take a long time—unless Miss Carlton is willing to settle out of court. Maybe she will pay us twenty-five thousand dollars to keep us from suing her.”
“She’ll never do that!” asserted Mrs. Fishberry.
“Why do you say that?” asked the lawyer. “Mr. Tower seemed to think that there might be some chance of it.”
“Because I know Miss Carlton. She isn’t the sort of person to run away from trouble. And Mr. Tower doesn’t know Miss Carlton, or he wouldn’t think she would.”
“Hm,” remarked Mr. Epstein.
“Well, when will Mr. Tower be back?” the woman inquired impatiently. “I would like to be married before we get the girl.”
“That isn’t possible, Mrs. Fishberry,” he said. “And it really doesn’t make a bit of difference. Mr. Tower is out of town now and may not be back for several days. He left word for me to tell you to call him up at the Central Hotel in Milwaukee to-morrow morning, if you had anything to say to him that was important. I suppose if you wanted to see him, you could go there. That is the only message I have, Mrs. Fishberry.”
“I see,” replied the other, as she hung up the receiver. She was so angry at the way Ed Tower did things, the way he never seemed to consider what she wanted to do, that she thought of going home to Montana, and dropping her part in the affair. After all, was it worth it? What was she going to get out of it? And she certainly didn’t want to have to look after Helen Tower for the rest of her life.
Ed was certainly a selfish man. Oh, he was attractive, and nice if he wanted to be, but wasn’t he just using her now to help him get this money? How was she to be sure that he would ever share it with her if he did get it?
She would have dropped the whole thing then and there—for Mrs. Fishberry had never been a dishonest woman before—had it not been for the thought of poor Helen Tower locked alone in that empty house. Although she had no love for the girl, and believed her to be feeble-minded, she could not bear the thought of her being burned alive, as she might be if Ed went alone to the house without knowing that Helen was there. No; Mrs. Fishberry couldn’t back out now. She’d have to take the sleeper to Milwaukee in time to be there in the morning, to go with Ed and rescue the girl.