“You are mistaken.” She glanced upward, and her clear eyes did not falter in their direct gaze, while a wave of color mantled her cheeks. “I think of you—dream of you—” She checked herself as she saw the passion which lighted his eyes. “This is no place—go,” as two men approached. “Don’t keep Millicent waiting.” And with that parting injunction she turned to greet the city editor.
“You are just in time, Miss Deane,” exclaimed the city editor, as Wyndham walked away. “Mr. Reynolds,” indicating his companion, “has a new lot of photographs for you to choose from for the Sunday paper. Here’s the elevator.” And hardly giving the outgoing passengers an opportunity to leave, the energetic city editor hustled Dorothy and the photographer into the elevator, and on arriving at their floor he accompanied them into Dorothy’s office. “Have you a photograph of Millicent Porter?” he asked, taking up the prints which Reynolds laid on Dorothy’s desk.
“No,” was the photographer’s glum response. “Mr. Wyndham called at the studio early Tuesday morning and forbade us giving copies to the press.”
The city editor dropped the prints in disgust and turned to Dorothy. “Are you sure you have no picture of Miss Porter in your desk?”
“I am positive that I have not.” Dorothy pulled up a chair and examined the glossy photographs. “Perhaps my predecessor used one of Miss Porter. If so, the cut will be on file with the others.”
“Her name is in the card index, but the cut itself is missing,” grumbled the city editor. “Wish I knew who took it. I’d fire him. We haven’t had such a sensational murder as Brainard’s in years, and I can’t lay my hands on a single photograph of the principals involved.”
“Who are chiefly involved?” Dorothy’s face was screened by the large print which she was studying with interest.
“Chiefly involved?” The city editor knitted his brows. “Well, I should say all the Porter household is involved more or less, but I believe that English doctor, Noyes, who skipped out of the country so opportunely, knows a thing or two which might aid in tracing the murderer. And,” he added, warming to his subject, “if I’d been on that coroner’s jury I would have made Millicent Porter talk.”
Dorothy smiled with her lips only, her eyes fixed steadily on the pretty woman in the photograph. “Possibly the jury found Miss Porter had nothing to say,” she remarked.
“Nothing to say? A girl whose fiancé has just been murdered?” The city editor laughed loudly as if enjoying a huge joke. “Miss Deane, you’re dippy.”