“I have just heard it.” Vera glanced cautiously up and down the hall; apparently they had it to themselves. She pulled the bedroom door almost shut behind her. “Where is Hugh Wyndham?”
“Gone with Alan Noyes and the sheriff to the court house.” Dorothy laid a steadying hand against the wall; she was trembling from head to foot. “Mrs. Porter said Hugh would arrange for Alan’s release on bail. Vera,” lifting pleading, anguished eyes to her sister, “are you going to speak?”
A heavy tread on the stairs reached them, and without word or sign Vera retreated into the bedroom, leaving her sister’s question unanswered. With the door once safely closed she stopped and regarded Craig Porter, then going over to the desk she took up the chart and, glancing at her watch, registered the time and made the entry:
“Patient renews plucking at bedclothes.”
Putting down the chart she took up the letter from the telephone company, and smoothing out the sheet read the typewritten lines. It was from the branch manager of the company:
In response to your request for information regarding the telephone call received by Central from the Porter mansion at 5.55 A.M. on Tuesday of this week, would say that Central reports that Dr. Beverly Thorne’s residence was called for, the speaker being a woman.
Very truly yours—
“The speaker being a woman—” Vera dropped the letter as if it burned her fingers. Only one woman was in the library besides herself at 5.55 A.M. Tuesday morning—and that woman was Millicent Porter.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE COUNTERFEIT BANK NOTE
WYNDHAM turned his roadster into the river road and, seeing no vehicle approaching along the straight stretch ahead of him, pressed the accelerator and his car raced homeward. He had found Alan Noyes, his only companion, morose to a degree of rudeness, and had forborne to address him after leaving the county court house. The hearing before Judge Ball had been a tedious affair, and the arranging of bail hampered by red tape, and it was long after the luncheon hour when Noyes was finally permitted to return to Dewdrop Inn with Wyndham.