"No?" Pause. "Oh, very well. Good-by."
Ashton-Kirk hung up the receiver and turned to his friend.
"So," said Pendleton, in a queer sort of voice, "she doesn't wish to speak to me."
"Not over the wire—no. But she wants you to come to her—at once. She desires to hear all about what she calls the wonderful way we have handled this case, and she wants to hear it—from you." Ashton-Kirk looked at his watch. "It is now 10:45. You can get there by eleven if you rush."
"Do you call doing that little distance in fifteen minutes rushing?" The young man's face was radiant and he was making for the door as he spoke. "If I don't do it in half that time, I'm a duffer."
Then the door slapped behind him, and Ashton-Kirk heard him bounding down the stairs.
Another story in this series is "ASHTON-KIRK AND THE SCARLET SCAPULAR" (in press)