CHAPTER XIV
A Duel
MRS. MATTHEWSON entered the little parlour, where she had met Trafford, for the purpose of keeping another appointment—one that she had not wanted to make and which she had not yet dared refuse. When she visited her son, she knew the name of the man who, under his direction, was hunting down Theodore Wing’s mother, but she did not know the man. Now she was to meet him face to face. She was afraid, and she bore herself with the air of a queen about to grant a favour to her humblest subject.
Cranston felt her imperiousness in the very air as he entered, and rebel as he would, it daunted him and took a share of his bravado from him. She returned his salutation, but with the evident purpose not to aid him in the slightest in the delivery of his errand.
“I regret the necessity,” he said, “of troubling you.”
She bowed stiffly, but without other answer. He apparently had not struck the line of least resistance.
“I have been employed,” he began, “upon the Wing murder case.” Then, at the look in her eyes, as if of all things on earth the Wing murder case had the least possible interest to her, he added desperately: “Among those who employed me were your sons.”
“Then you should report to them.” These were the first words she had spoken and the tone was beyond measure forbidding, but they were at the least words and a recognition that she was taking part in the interview. As such they helped the man who, in spite of his experience, was floundering woefully.
“I thought it in your interest that I should first report to you,” he said.
“There’s nothing in which any one can serve me in the Wing murder case,” she said, not sparing herself even the word “murder.”