But Ethel had fled.
CHAPTER XX
ELUSIVE CLEWS
It was barely nine o’clock in the morning when Leonard McLane reached his office in response to an urgent telephone call, and the one occupant of his office rose to greet him with marked impatience, which he vainly tried to conceal under cordiality.
“It was good of you to hurry down,” said Colonel Carter Calhoun following him into his private office. “I was sorry to cut short your breakfast hour.”
“That was all right,” responded McLane, pushing a chair up to his desk. “You rang off before I could ask you to breakfast with me, Colonel.”
“Thanks.” Calhoun dragged his chair forward, close to McLane. “I went at once from the Union Station to see the Secretary of War and while breakfasting with him, telephoned you from his residence. I want to thank you for wiring me of Dwight Tilghman’s murder—it was a shock, a very great shock—and now to be met with the news of James Patterson’s murder,” Calhoun sighed. “It looks badly, very badly—and no trace of the murderer.”
“I see you use the singular tense,” commented McLane. “You believe, then, Colonel, that one man committed the two crimes?”
“I prefer to reserve my theories until I’ve heard your facts.” And McLane smiled covertly at his caution.
“Have you seen the morning newspaper and its account of the Patterson inquest?” he asked.
“Yes.”