“Nobody beat him up.” He ignored the final question. “Do you know any of the other help over at the Sloanes’?”
“Only John Platt, the butler, but he’s old and hardly leaves the house.” Snape had risen with alacrity, but as he showed McCarty to the front door he added anxiously: “I never even saw the Lindholm woman but once, and I don’t know what you want her for, but I hope you won’t say that I tipped you off about her! I don’t want to get in any mix-up with that Swede husband of hers and it would be as much as my place is worth, if I was thought to have made trouble in the Mall here!”
On the sidewalk before the house McCarty found an exceedingly pretty young girl in the picturesque dress of the typical French bonne, guiding the steps of a tiny, toddling baby. The child was dimpling and gurgling with mischief. Snatching suddenly at her nurse’s handbag she tossed it as far out on the sidewalk as she could. McCarty retrieved and returned it with a bow.
“Merci, monsieur,” the girl said gravely, but her dark eyes too danced with laughter. “She is a very naughty, bad baby that I have here, is it not so?”
The last observation was evidently intended for her charge, but McCarty replied gallantly:
“’Twas a pleasure, miss! Sure, at that age they’re all full of the—of life. It’s Mrs. Bellamy’s little girl, isn’t it?”
“Yes, Monsieur.” Her eyes were serious now and there was a note of reserve in her soft voice. “Come, ma petite. We shall go in now.”
Dennis was waiting patiently and evinced considerable interest in the brief tête-à-tête he had just witnessed, but McCarty was not in a mood to be treated with levity.
“She’s a pretty girl and a polite one, but well you know I’ve no eye for them!” he disclaimed. “I’ll be taking you now to call on another, though, that’ll maybe give us some real dope.”
“It’s Truda!” exulted Dennis. “You’ve made him come across with her address! Did you get anything else out of him, Mac?”