“It’s some one inquiring if you are here, Dan,” she said in surprise. “Some one—your father, I think it is—wants to speak to you.”
Daniel rose slowly—with unusual effort, she thought—and took the receiver from her hand. Virginia returned to the piano, busying herself there, turning over the leaves of her music, and trying not to listen; but she heard him ask a quick question. Then he uttered a sharp exclamation, and involuntarily she looked up.
Daniel hung up the receiver and turned.
“Oh, Dan, what is it? What has happened?” she cried.
His white lips moved soundlessly at first.
“It’s my young brother,” he said at last. “Leigh has shot and killed that man—Corwin, Caraffi’s manager.”
XVIII
It was after dark, and the lights at the station-house were shining across a street still crowded with the curious and the idle, when Daniel finally reached the little cell where Leigh had been lodged since the shooting. He found the boy lying face downward on the bare cot in the corner, his head on his arms. Daniel had to touch his shoulder before he roused himself and looked up. His white, drawn face and his disheveled hair shocked his brother. He looked as if he had aged two years in five hours.
“I’ve come to help you, Leigh,” said Daniel simply.
Leigh raised himself to a sitting posture, dropping his feet heavily to the floor. Daniel saw the traces of tears on his blurred face, but he pulled himself together, though his lips shook.