Cora Cavendish was emerging from the elevator when Patsy entered. She was a tall, slender woman close upon thirty, with an abundance of bleached hair, thin features, a rather pretty face aside from its paleness, and a certain sinister and crafty expression in her gray eyes. She was fashionably clad and was drawing on a pair of long, lavender kid gloves.
Passing within three feet of Patsy, and wafting to his nostrils a pronounced aroma of heliotrope sachet, she paused for a moment and said to the clerk, with a quick and somewhat metallic voice:[Pg 24]
“If Guy Morton shows up and asks for me, Mr. Hardy, tell him I’ll return in twenty minutes.”
“All right, Miss Cavendish,” nodded the clerk. “I’ll bear it in mind.”
“I have a date with him,” Cora added. “But he may tire of waiting and come looking for me.”
“Tire of waiting for you—impossible!” Hardy observed, with a grin.
“Oh, quit your kidding!” retorted the woman, laughing. “You hand him my message, Hardy, and give him the key to my suite.”
“I’ll do so, Cora.”
“Good for you. Tell him to wait, mind you.”
“No need to tell him that,” Hardy returned, as the woman swept out of the office.