Who was the woman? Vainly, Kitty tried to identify her voice. Strive as she did to recall where she had heard it before, it eluded her memory. Why should any woman bribe old Oscar to steal papers which had belonged to her aunt?
With a sigh of utter weariness, Kitty gave up the problem for the moment and continued her dressing. Twenty minutes later, her toilet completed, she stopped before the cheval glass and gave a final pat to her hair. At last, satisfied with her appearance, she hastened into the hall. As she descended the staircase, she heard the rattle of dishes in the dining room and the sound of the dumb-waiter creaking its way upward. With flying footsteps she covered the intervening space and crossed the hall to the pantry.
“Oscar!” she called. “I wish to speak to you at once. Come here.”
But the person who stepped from the dining room into the pantry at her imperious summons was not Oscar.
“What yo’ want, Miss Kitty?” asked Mandy.
“Oscar!” She repeated the old servant’s name with ever growing impatience. “I must see him immediately.”
“Laws, Miss Kitty, Oscar’s on his way to Front Royal, Virginia, dis hyar minute,” explained Mandy, in no wise hurrying her leisurely speech.
“On his way where?” gasped Kitty.
“To Front Royal.” Mandy lifted her apron and produced from a voluminous pocket a much twisted telegram. “He done got dis hyar message to come at wandst ’cause his brother, the one dat owns a farm five miles from Front Royal, is a dyin’. See what dey done wrote,” and she held out the telegram. Kitty read the typed lines with interest before handing the telegram back to Mandy.