“And one thing more—just to clear things up in my own mind—did you ever see Helen in your life before your visit to Green Falls?”
“No, I didn’t,” admitted the woman. “That was all Ed’s lie—to get money out of you. Oh, I am innocent—I’ve never done anything bad till I got in his clutches. But he looks like a prince, and smiles like an angel, and he wound me right around his little finger!”
An inspiration came to Linda: perhaps Mrs. Fishberry knew something of Ed Tower’s plans. Perhaps she would be willing to tell, now that she was so angry with him.
“You don’t know where he is now, do you?” she asked, trying to speak casually, as if she were not much concerned.
“No, I don’t!” replied the other, flatly. “And I don’t care! I’m going to clear out of here, and go back to Montana.”
“Mr. Tower didn’t say anything to you about going abroad?”
“Oh, yes, he did. He’s clearing out of the country, the minute he collects that money from his father’s estate. He got some kind of job with an air-transport company at Newport News.”
“Air-transport company!” repeated Linda, in amazement. “But why should he want to get a job, when he had all that money? Does he like work so much?”
“No, but he was afraid to go to England by an ordinary passenger boat, for fear he’d be caught. You know—passports, and all that sort of thing. Nobody but me and the man who got him this job know that he’s going.”
“So if the police look for him, they won’t be able to find him?” concluded Linda, with a twinkle in her eye. What luck it was, to get the very information she wanted—and from a person she had actually tried to avoid!