“I shall be as quiet as possible,” Polly promised, and Mrs. Hale, satisfied that she had made Polly understand that she was capable of issuing orders in her husband’s absence, walked toward the hall door. Polly’s voice halted her as she was on the point of leaving the room.
“Is Mr. Hale very ill?” she asked.
“No, oh, no,” Mrs. Hale spoke with positiveness. “But Dr. McLane said that he was under the effects of a sedative. I was in our bedroom a moment ago and Robert was sound asleep. Polly,”—she hesitated and fingered her hand bag—“if you come across a memorandum bearing my name, be sure to let me see it,” and with a whisk of her skirts she hastened away.
Polly stared at the highly glazed surface of Robert Hale’s expensive stationery and then at her penholder. Suddenly she pitched the latter from her and, rising, methodically searched the entire room, taking care that her movements made no noise.
In his comfortable four-post bed in the darkened room adjoining his den, Robert Hale smiled to himself as he dragged the eider-down quilt up about his ears and lay still. His daughter Judith had not inherited his acute hearing.
CHAPTER V
MORE THEORIES
Rain and snow followed by sleet had reduced the traffic in the streets of the Capital City to venturesome taxicabs and occasional delivery cars. Few Washingtonians, not required by necessity to venture out of doors, were so unwise as to risk a fall on the slippery pavements, and the generally gay thoroughfares of the fashionable Northwest were deserted. Weather-forecasters had announced in the morning press that a decade had passed since such a combination of ice and sleet had visited the city so late in the winter.
The small procession of automobiles returning from Oak Hill Cemetery coasted its way with care down the steep hills of Georgetown and along the ice-covered asphalt. John Hale, the occupant of the foremost car, pulled out his handkerchief and mopped his face, which, in spite of the biting north wind and the zero weather, was damp with perspiration.
“Thank God!” he muttered rather than spoke. “That is over.” He turned and scowled at his companion. “Well, Frank, haven’t you anything to say?”
Frank Latimer, who had been studying his friend in silence, roused himself.