“Oh!” Mrs. Ogden’s face fell. Having once jumped to a decision she despised putting off action. But Ethel looked spent and weary, and reluctantly she gave up her plans for the evening. “Run along,” she said. “I wanted you to write letters to Mrs. Van Alstyne and Mrs. Warner canceling my luncheon and dinner engagements, but it doesn’t matter.”
Ethel was quick to detect the discontent in Mrs. Ogden’s voice.
“Certainly I will write them for you,” she announced. “It will take no time at all.”
“I have a better plan,” broke in Norcross who, with Ogden, stood just behind them. “Let me write the notes at your dictation, Mrs. Ogden, and then your cousin can get the sleep she really needs.”
“What’s the matter with writing them yourself, Jane?” demanded Ogden. “You never developed pen paralysis until you found a secretary fashionable.”
Mrs. Ogden turned her back on her husband. “Of course Ethel must go to bed,” and she smiled kindly at her. “If you will help me, Professor——”
“I shall be delighted”—Norcross looked back as he followed Mrs. Ogden and her husband into the library, to wave his hand to Ethel who responded similarly as she went up the staircase.
But on reaching the next floor Ethel did not go at once to her bedroom. Almost against her will her feet carried her to the den, and for the third time since the fire she went over each article left in the room.
By direction of the fire chief, nothing had been touched or moved. All furniture had been completely or partially destroyed except her metal typewriting desk, and after inspecting the débris about her, she sat down before her desk and methodically took out its contents. Her miniature was not there.
At last Ethel sat back in her chair and closed her eyes, endeavoring to recall each action of the day before. No, she had not taken the miniature away; she had put it in the top drawer of her desk just before luncheon, and there it must have remained until carried away by James Patterson. But what had become of it after he had secured it? Had the murderer picked it up in his hasty flight? Or had Julian Barclay found and pocketed it on discovering Patterson’s dead body? Ethel shook her head; no, Barclay would have spoken of it—But would he? He had, if he found it, only gotten back his own property.