Now Vic bridled a little, never other than crafty, and her smiling face took on a look of regret.
“Dear me! That makes it a little bad,” she said, as if weighing the situation. “I already had planned to go to——Stay! here is a note to verify my making any excuse, Detective Carter, after offering so volubly to serve you.”
She reached over to the desk while speaking, taking from it the note she had been writing, which she now handed to Nick to be read.
It was merely a note to her maid, informing her that she would be absent for a few hours, and that the girl might close the rooms and take an outing until the morrow.
“I had already planned to go riding, and was about to leave that note for Delia, my maid,” she explained, while Nick glanced at the craftily prepared missive.
“Well, that does interfere, Miss Clayton, as you say,” he replied, eying her a bit sharply, yet failing to detect any sign of duplicity, so artful was the jade. “If you cannot go with me to-day, however, possibly to-morrow you——”
“Stop a moment!” exclaimed Vic, as if struck with a second thought. “I was going only with Amos and his wife, merely for a run of an hour or two, and——Hark! that should be they!”
The toot of an automobile-horn had sounded from the street below, and Vic sprang up while speaking, and ran to look from the window.
“Yes, they are at the curb,” she added, with manifest satisfaction. “Amos is coming up here. Now, if he has no definite plans, Mr. Carter, I see no reason why we cannot prevail upon you to——”
She was interrupted by the entrance of Mr. Amos Badger.