I leaned nearer, my voice gone a little hoarse:
"What is it?"
She turned her head and looked into my eyes. Her expression chilled me, cold, challenging, defiant:
"Tell me if the Whitney Office has found Johnston Barker yet?"
For a second our eyes held, and in that second I saw the defiance die out of hers and only question, a desperate question, take its place.
"No," I heard myself say, "they have not found him."
"Thank you," she murmured, and went back to her play with the pencil.
I drew myself to the edge of my chair and laid a hand on the corner of the desk:
"You've asked me a question and I've answered it. Now let me ask one. Why are you so interested in the movements of Johnston Barker?"
She stiffened, I could see her body grow rigid under its thin silk covering. The hand holding the pencil began to tremble: