"Wait a minute.... It was part of Spike's job to dress up every evening, big white shirt front and all, he was crazy about it, he could get away with it too ... and have dinner at some swell joint ..."
"Could it have been the Hotel Warrington?"
"That as well as another.... Wait a minute.... He brought me a menu card to show me. The top was torn off with the name of the hotel. But I have the rest of it home. Easy enough to find out if that's one of the Warrington cards."
"Yes, yes!" said Pen. "Anything else? Oh, think!"
"Wait a minute! ... There was something else.... Only a little thing ... More than once Spike mentioned that his boss had elegant whiskey. Said it stood in a cut glass bottle on a table, and every time he went there his boss would say: 'Help yourself.' That seemed to strike Spike. So friendly from a man like that..."
"Riever is an expert on poisons," said Pen aghast.
Blanche's little face was like a mask of pain, the lips drawn taut over the exposed teeth. "I get you!" she murmured hoarsely. "The last time Spike helped himself..."
The two girls stared at each other.
Something seemed to click inside Blanche, and instantly she was her ordinary wary, hard, self-possessed little self again. She moved towards the telephone.
"I'll send for the Babe," she said. "You can count on him the same as me. He looked up to Spike. He's got a good head on him too, for a kid. We'll go over everything together, and then the kid and I'll fluff back. In N'Yawk there's a dozen young fellows'll help. All pals of Spike's. I'll organize them."