“You’d better tell the truth,” Marshall Bryant warned her.
The false Lucy burst into tears. “He talked me into doing it,” she cried. “Thurman said as soon as we were married, my name would be Dorn and no one would ever know of this impersonation. Calling myself Lucy Rowe was just for a little while—”
Marshall Bryant in his anger was having difficulty in breathing. Vicki feared he might suffer another heart attack. “Just for a little while,” he repeated heavily. “While you tricked us into believing that you were our granddaughter, eh? I suppose you planned to keep up the pretense and call yourself Lucy indefinitely. Only now you’ve lost your nerve!”
“Thurman never told me that there was a real Lucy Rowe; he never told me I’d be cheating someone,” the other girl asserted, weeping. “Don’t blame me! He and his mother told me that Lucy was dead, only you didn’t know it, and that we might as well have the inheritance for ourselves instead of letting some stupid charities have it. Thurman and Mrs. Heath are to blame, not me.” Dorn tried to break in, but the girl went on half hysterically. “They said that with my dramatic school training and being a quick study, I could easily play Lucy’s part—”
“You’re telling half-truths,” Dorn said. “You never objected to becoming rich, did you?”
“Keep quiet, both of you,” Marshall Bryant ordered. The old man turned toward Vicki. “What’s this about Dorn’s mother?”
“Yes, didn’t you once tell us,” Mrs. Bryant asked the young lawyer, “that your mother in Chicago was widowed and had remarried? What is your mother’s name?” Dorn tugged hard at his mustache and refused to answer. “Mr. Dorn,” Mrs. Bryant reminded him, “we can find out from your law firm.”
Dorn muttered, “Her name is Heath. Elizabeth Heath. She’s a widow for the second time; she’s alone except for me.”
“So you thought you’d provide for your mother, yourself, and your fiancée at my expense,” Marshall Bryant said bitterly. “No wonder you were in such a hurry to have me sign over a parcel of stocks and bonds to Lucy—Dorothy—whatever her name is.” The girl gave her name, very low: Dorothy Clinton. “Well, I’ll rescind that immediately!”
“About Mrs. Heath,” Mrs. Bryant said. “She actually kept this girl, our—our granddaughter”—it was hard for her to reverse her thinking—“out of sight?”