“Anything else?” inquired an angry voice at the other end of the wire.
“Yes,” said Bill, “there is. A slight error on my part, or what might be construed as an error. When I inferred that you willingly risked human life in order to obtain money, I naturally made an exception.”
“And that is?”
“Your own valuable life, Mr. Evans!”
With this Parthian shot, Bill slapped on the receiver and switched off the telephone extension to his room. “I guess that’ll hold him,” he muttered. “Gosh, I’m glad I got that off my chest!”
He was under the shower in his bath when there was a knock on the door.
“You’re wanted on the telephone, Master William,” called a maid’s voice. “It’s a gentleman—wouldn’t give his name.”
“You tell the gentleman,” called back Bill, “that I’m busy. If he is insistent, say that I suggest he can go where snowballs melt the fastest.”
He dressed in a leisurely manner and went down to the dining room, where he found a hot meal awaiting him. He did full justice to it, and about eight-thirty he went out the front door, climbed in his car and drove off.
It was a twenty-minute drive down through the ridge country to the city of Stamford, where he parked his car in a garage off Atlantic Street. From there he walked down back streets and eventually came to Gring’s Hotel.