“And you got one of them to look up Helen Framley?”
“Yes. Ogden made an investigation. I called him on the telephone, asked him to try and find out about a person named Framley. If he could locate such a person, to try and find out what this person knew about Coda. He learned there was a Helen Framley in the city.”
“Did he locate her?” Bertha asked.
“Yes. He found Helen Framley — and that’s all the good it did him.”
“What happened?” Bertha asked.
“Miss Framley told him she hadn’t written any letter, that she had no idea who Corla was or where she was, and didn’t want to be questioned about anything pertaining to her, that she’d never even heard of Corla Burke.”
“Was she telling the truth?” Bertha asked.
Whitewell said, “I don’t know. Ogden seemed to think she was. There’s something very evasive and mysterious about the young woman. That’s why I wanted a professional detective on the job.”
“How about the police?” Bertha asked. “You said they weren’t interested?”
He moved his shoulders. “Just another missing person so far as they’re concerned. They’re going through the motions of trying to locate her, but that’s all. They insist that a certain percentage of young women who disappear that way are either going to have a baby or are running away with some man. They seemed to think Corla was really in love with someone else, had decided to marry Philip because he looked like a good catch, and then had changed her mind.”