The lawyer pursed up his lips. “Oh, well, if you insist—” He shrugged his shoulders and went with reluctance to the telephone. It took him ten minutes to get his despatch taken down by a sleepy operator, and when he hung up the receiver he was not in the best of tempers.
“I’m off to bed,” he stated ungraciously. “Coming, Curtis?”
“In a moment, I want to send a call.” Curtis hitched his chair closer to the instrument stand and reached for the telephone. “Don’t wait for me, Hollister, I’ll come along shortly.”
The lawyer wandered over to the smoking table and helped himself to several cigars. Then he turned back and faced the blind surgeon.
“See here, Curtis,” he began, “don’t run off with the idea that I propose to give up a hundred thousand dollars to Elliott or any man without incontestable proof that it belongs to him. I am not an utter fool.” Not waiting for a rejoinder, he stalked from the library, taking no pains to walk softly.
Curtis paused in the act of calling “Central” and replaced the telephone receiver. What had caused Hollister’s sudden outburst of temper? The lawyer’s conversation with Lucille Hull, which he had inadvertently overheard, was the first inkling that he, Curtis, had had that Hollister was in love with her. Evidently he was an unsuccessful suitor of long standing, judging from what he had said to Lucille. Could it be that Hollister had stolen the codicil to Meredith’s will so that Lucille would not inherit the million dollars and thus, as Hollister himself had expressed it, “place another barrier between them”? Bah! the idea was absurd, and Curtis smiled to himself, but the smile vanished at the thought that Hollister knew of the codicil and knew of its whereabouts on Sunday night. Who could say that he had not returned to Meredith’s bedroom, engaged Meredith in conversation and stolen the papers—and murdered Meredith.
Curtis shook his head. Hollister was not the type of man to indulge in bloodshed, whatever the incentive; nor had nature cast him for the role of a Don Quixote.
Putting out his hand, Curtis lifted the receiver and gave McLane’s telephone number to “Central.” A half-awake servant took his message to have McLane call him first thing in the morning, and giving up all hope of talking with his friend that night, Curtis sought his bedroom. As he passed down the corridor leading to his room, he heard some one move just ahead of him and an alarmed exclamation in a woman’s voice, followed by his name in a lower key.
“I am sorry I frightened you, Miss Hull,” he said apologetically.
“It is Mrs. Hull, not Lucille, doctor.” As she spoke Mrs. Hull peeped out from the alcove where she had retreated at his unexpected appearance. The alcove was shallow and Mrs. Hull, as she gathered her dressing gown about her, was thankful that she faced a blind man.