“He did?” Latimer looked up, startled. “Good Lord, you don’t suppose—?” he winced under John Hale’s iron grip and stopped speaking.
“I suppose nothing,” John Hale spoke with fierce intentness. “Austin had enemies, but Polly was not one of them—she had taken his measure and ceased to care.”
Latimer broke the ensuing silence.
“Then why has Polly bolted?” he asked.
John Hale winced and tapped his cane against his shoe.
“Polly is ill from overwork,” he insisted doggedly. “Come, we are wasting time. Suppose I run you down to Polly’s house and you can question Mrs. Davis. You are not busy, are you?” with a quick look about the room.
“No; I’ll be with you in a minute,” and Latimer, true to his word, kept him waiting only long enough to get his overcoat and hat.
Fifteen minutes later Latimer was mounting the high steps of the old-fashioned mansion on C Street where Polly and her mother eked out a small and steadily shrinking income by taking “paying guests,” a profitable business during the World War, but one that had grown less so with the departure of the army of war-workers who had transformed Washington from a city of leisure into one of volcanic activity and unpleasant congestion. It was not until Latimer’s patience had grown threadbare with repeated rapping and long intervals of waiting that a small, neatly dressed colored girl, seemingly not over fifteen years of age, opened the door and invited him to walk inside.
“Magnolia,” called a voice from the direction of the back stairs. “Show the gentleman into the parlor.”
“Yassam,” Magnolia’s expansive smile disclosed a row of perfect teeth. “Dis hyar way, suh; de madam will be long d’reckly. Who did you say, suh?” evidently impressed with his stylish frock coat and neatly creased trousers. “Miss Polly done gone away.”