"You must not infer, Mort—my faith in that girl is at stake. Was there nothing in her favor? Nothing that justified her claim?"
He hesitated and Kate leaned forward in excess of interest. "Go on, Morton, be honest."
"Well, now, as I think of it there was one little thing which was rather curious. I don't know how she or Clarke or any one there should know what we used to call Uncle Ben."
"What? Did you get a message from him?"
"A voice from the megaphone asked for me, and when I requested the name of 'the party speaking,' as Clarke says, it replied with an oily chuckle, exactly like the old duffer, 'It's old Loggy.'"
"It did?" Her voice was sharp with surprise. "Well, now, that is as wonderful as my experience. How do you account for that? How do you account for such things?" she repeated, insistently.
"Clarke must have known—"
"Nonsense. No one outside our immediate family knows of that nickname. Besides, how would he know the way 'Loggy' laughed? I'd forgotten it myself."
"So had I. But what would you say? Would you jump to the conclusion—"
"You are jumping at the conclusion, Mort. If there is one single thing that you can't understand, you must give that girl the benefit of the doubt. What did 'Loggy' say?"