“Quite so. Now will you be good enough to continue with your story?”
“We hardly talked at all on our way back to Rosemont. I remember that Sue asked whether we wouldn’t get there before the film was over, and I said, ‘Probably.’ But as a matter of fact, we didn’t. We got to Rosemont at about five minutes to ten, and the theatre was dark. There were no cars in front of it and the doors were locked. I said, ‘She’ll probably be at the house,’ and Sue said, ‘If she isn’t, I think that it will look decidedly queer to have me dropping in there at this time of night.’ I said, ‘There’ll be no one there to see you; Nellie’s gone home to her mother and Orsini went to New York at eight-fifteen.’
“It takes only three or four minutes from the theatre to the house, and just as we started to turn in at the gate Sue said, ‘You’re wrong; there’s a light in the garage.’ I looked up quickly, and there wasn’t a sign of a light. I laughed and said, ‘Don’t let things get on your nerves, Sue; I tell you that I saw him going to the train.’ And I helped her out of the car. There was a light in the hall, and as I opened the door I called ‘Mimi!’ No one answered, and then I remembered that I’d left it burning when I went out. I said, ‘Come in. She must be over at the Conroys’. I’ll call up and get her over.’ ”
“So far so good,” said the reporter contentedly. “If Mr. Stephen Bellamy isn’t telling the truth, he’s as fertile and resourceful a liar as has crossed my trail in these many moons. Do you feel better?”
“Better than best,” the red-headed girl assured him fervently. “Only I wish that Bellamy girl had died a long time ago.”
“Do you indeed?”
“Yes, I do indeed—about twenty years ago, before she got out of socks and hair ribbons and started in breaking men’s hearts. Elliot Farwell and Patrick Ives and Stephen Bellamy—even that little bus driver looked bewitched. Of course I ought to be sorry she’s dead—but truly she wasn’t good for very much, was she?”
“Not very much. The ones who are good for very much aren’t generally particularly heartbreaking.”
“You’d probably be as bad as any of them,” said the red-headed girl darkly, and relapsed into silence.