Susan Baird.
Kitty and Rodgers stared at each other as Craige, laying aside the will, rapidly opened the three other documents and examined them. Kitty drew a long, long breath.
“So I get the old house after all,” she said softly.
“You get far more than that, Kitty,” Craige laid down the documents. “From these statements and certificates I find that your aunt owned many valuable stocks and bonds.” He looked at the surprised girl for a moment, then added: “She has left you a fortune.”
CHAPTER IX
MRS. PARSONS ASKS QUESTIONS
Washington society, or such portions of it as had known Miss Susan Baird in her lifetime, was agog over the latest development in the Baird tragedy; while Washingtonians personally unacquainted with the spinster were equally interested from motives of curiosity in the filing of her will. And all Washington, figuratively speaking, rubbed its eyes and read the newspapers assiduously, without, however, gaining much satisfaction. News from Police Headquarters was scant, and reporters resorted to theories in place of facts in trying to solve the murder of the “Miser of Rose Hill.” Miss Susan Baird, in death, had emerged from the obscurity which had shrouded her in life.
Inspector Mitchell leaned forward in his chair, rested his elbows on the highly polished mahogany table-top and contemplated Mrs. Parsons with speculative interest. Three quarters of an hour before he had received a telephone message requesting him to call upon her on, as her servant had stated, urgent business. He had spent ten minutes in conversation with Mrs. Parsons and had not received the faintest inkling as to why she wished to see him.
“May I ask, Madam,” he began with direct bluntness, “what it is that you wish to see me about?”