Wenston said with dignity, “I told him to give you a croth-examination.”
“I expected that,” she said. “The reason I didn’t tell Mr. Wenston all the details is that I don’t want to keep going over them again and again. I don’t mind telling you, Mr. Mason, that I know Mr. Wenston isn’t the one who put that ad in the paper. For one thing, it’s very apparent that Mr. Wenston is rather young to have been in partnership with my father in 1920. I also know it because I know something about the persons with whom my father had that partnership. One of them was a man by the name of Karr, and I presume that he’s the one who’s really back of this ad in the paper. I’ve asked Mr. Wenston if that wasn’t a fact, and he refused to answer. I’ve asked him if he isn’t related to a Mr. Karr or employed by him, and he told me we’d go over that when we got to your office. Well, the way I look at it, if Mr. Karr is the one who’s really interested, why can’t we go to see him and then have it settled one way or the other?”
Wenston shook his head firmly. “I won’t subject the guv’nor to the strain of such an interview unleth I know it’s justified. You’ve got to convince me before you can ever see him.”
“How much convincing are you going to require?” Miss Wickford asked, her eyes surveying Wenston in a head-to-toe glance, which was something less than cordial.
“ I’m going to need lots of convincing.”
“All right, here goes,” Miss Wickford said cheerfully, drawing up a chair and unfastening the snap on a large purse which she had carried under her arm.
“Tell me the name of your father,” Wenston said, glancing at Mason meaningly. “It might save time.”
Her glance was scornful. “His name was Wickford. He had trouble with creditors, so he went to the Orient. While he was in Shanghai, he took the name of Tucker.”
Wenston frowningly studied her. “He had rather an unusual firtht name. Perhaps you can tell us what that was.”
“I can tell you what it was,” she said, “and I can tell you how he happened to take it. The name was D-O-W, and it consists of the initials of my name. Doris Octavia Wickford. Octavia was my mother’s name, and when my father wanted some distinctive first name, he coined the word Dow from those initials.”