“That will be very acceptable,” the real estate man responded, smiling with satisfaction. “I’ll be happy to oblige you by posing.”
Helping himself to a pen, he wrote out the cheque and presented it to the editor.
“Penny, how would you like to write the story?” inquired her father. “You’ve been helping Miss Norton with the publicity, I believe.”
“I’m rather bogged down with work,” Penny demurred. “I think Mrs. Weems wants me to clean the attic when I get home.”
“Never mind the attic. Please conduct Mr. Blake to the photography room and ask one of the boys to take his picture.”
Penny arose obediently, but as the real estate man left the office ahead of her, she shot her father a black look. She considered a publicity story very trivial indeed, and it particularly displeased her that she must write honeyed words about a man she did not admire.
“You have a very nice building here, very nice,” Mr. Blake patronizingly remarked as he was escorted toward the photographic department. Noticing a pile of freshly printed newspapers lying on one of the desks, he helped himself to a copy.
“I see the sheriff hasn’t captured Clem Davis yet,” he commented, scanning the front page. “I hope they get him! It’s a disgrace to Riverview that such a crime could be perpetrated, and the scoundrel go unpunished.”
“He’ll probably be caught,” Penny replied absently. “But I wonder if he’s the guilty person.”
“What’s that?” Mr. Blake demanded, regarding her with shrewd interest. “You think Davis didn’t burn the Preston barn?”