“No, Uncle Shad.”
Shadrach asked no more questions, and Zoeth asked none. Neither of them again mentioned Mary's call to the phone, either to her or to each other. And she did not refer to it. She had promised her Uncle Shadrach, when he questioned her the year before concerning Crawford, to tell him “when there was anything to tell.” But was there anything to tell now? With the task which she had set herself and the uncertainty before her she felt that there was not. Yet to keep silence troubled her. Until recently there had never been a secret between her uncles and herself; now there were secrets on both sides.
CHAPTER XIX
At twelve o'clock on a night late in the following week Captain Shadrach, snoring gloriously in his bed, was awakened by his partner's entering the room bearing a lighted lamp. The Captain blinked, raised himself on his elbow, looked at his watch which was on the chair by the bed's head, and then demanded in an outraged whisper:
“What in the nation are you prowlin' around this hour of the night for? You don't want to talk about those divilish bills and credits and things, I hope. What's the use? Talkin' don't help none! Jumpin' fire! I went to bed so's to forget 'em and I was just beginnin' to do it. Now you—”
Zoeth held up his hand. “Sshh! sshh!” he whispered. “Hush, Shadrach! I didn't come to talk about those things. Shadrach, there's—there's somethin' queer goin' on. Get up!”
The Captain was out of bed in a moment.
“What's the matter?” he demanded, in a whisper. “What's queer?”
“I—I don't exactly know. I heard somebody movin' downstairs and—”