“No.” The curtness of her tone annoyed Mitchell.
“When will your husband return?” he asked, raising his voice.
“Very soon, I imagine.” There was a pause, and Mitchell concluded she was consulting her watch, for she went on, “It is nearly ten o’clock. Shall I have Mr. Potter call you?”
Mitchell considered before replying. “No. I may have to go out, so I will ring him up. Thank you, Madam; good night.” He barely caught her hoarsely echoed “Good night,” before hanging up the receiver.
Mitchell paused to jot down the Potters’ telephone number in his notebook, then, securing his hat and overcoat, made for the street. Only pausing to exchange a hasty greeting with a brother officer, he jumped into the police car.
“The Baird house in Georgetown, Allen,” he directed, and sat in impatient silence as they whirled through the city streets. He was tired of inaction. Whatever the hour he could not rest until he had interviewed Kitty Baird. Mitchell had gained his promotion to inspector through ability, backed by dogged determination. He had early decided that the mystery of Miss Baird’s murder could best be solved through watching Kitty Baird and, as he had expressed it earlier that evening to Coroner Penfield, “wringing the truth from her.”
“She benefited by her aunt’s death and, by heaven, she is the only one living who did,” he had declared. “And it stands one hundred to one that if she doesn’t actually know who bumped her aunt off, she can make a mighty accurate guess.”
Mitchell’s temper did not cool down on his arrival at “Rose Hill,” but on the contrary gathered heat as he stood before the front door and rang the bell with increasing vigor as the minutes lengthened. The door was finally opened a tiny bit, and through the crack a pair of beady black eyes peered at him in the uncertain light.