“But—” Joan was embarrassed. It was hard to explain to him just why she had taken the story. And hearing him speak gave her a spooky feeling all up and down her spine. It was queer to be talking to him. She had a feeling she should shout and her voice rose without her knowing it. “But,” she shouted, “there’s something wrong with this story.”
“I know it,” nodded Dummy, calmly.
Yes, and she knew he knew it! But—Mr. Johnson had told her not to accuse any one. It was hard to know what to do.
Dummy held out his hand, with bulgy blue veins. “Just let me look at that story, please.”
But Joan clutched it to the front of her sweater. “What for?” she demanded.
Dummy resented this. “Look here, girl, you have no right to take that off the hook like that, and I want it.”
“But—” Well, she would tell him. “There’s a terrible mistake in it, and you let it go through.” That wasn’t really accusing him, she defended herself.
“I know it.” Was that a sigh that escaped Dummy’s lips? “I just realized that there was something phony about that story. It said the fire was caused by defective wiring and then in that last paragraph, it said something different. It just struck me, now—and I did let it go through.”
Forgetting all about Mr. Johnson’s caution about accusing, Joan gazed straight into Dummy’s mild, blue eyes. “Didn’t you put it there?” she asked as innocently as she could.
“Put it there!” Poor Dummy got red all over his face. Was it a guilty kind of red or a mad kind? Joan decided that if he were not showing righteous indignation, then he was one of the best actors she had ever seen. But she knew he was a good actor. Look how he had fooled them all into believing he was a deaf-mute.