“Your father,” said Dr. Reinach with a sigh, “often spoke of your mother toward the last, and of her beauty.”
“If he had left me nothing but this, it would have been worth the trip from England.” Alice trembled a little. Then she hurried back to them, the chromo pressed to her breast. “Let’s get out of here,” she said in a shriller voice. “I–I don’t like it here. It’s ghastly. I’m... afraid.”
They left the house with half-running steps, as if someone were after them. The old lawyer turned the key in the lock of the front door with great care, glaring at Dr. Reinach’s back as he did so. But the fat man had seized his niece’s arm and was leading her across the driveway to the White House, whose windows were now flickeringly bright with light and whose front door stood wide open.
As they crunched along behind, Ellery said sharply to Thorne:
“Thorne. Give me a clue. A hint. Anything. I’m completely in the dark.” Thome’s unshaven face was haggard in the setting sun. “Can’t talk now,” he muttered. “Suspect everything, everybody. I’ll see you tonight, in your room. Or wherever they put you, if you’re alone... Queen, for God’s sake, be careful!”
“Careful?” frowned Ellery.
“As if your life depended on it.” Thome’s lips made a thin, grim line. “For all I know, it does.”
Then they were crossing the threshold of the White House...
Ellery’s impressions were curiously vague. Perhaps it was the effect of the sudden smothering heat after the hours of cramping cold outdoors; perhaps he thawed out too suddenly, and the heat went to his brain.
He stood about for a while in a state almost of semi-consciousness, basking in the waves of warmth that eddied from a roaring fire in a fireplace black with age. He was only dimly aware of the two people who greeted them, and of the interior of the house. The room was old, like everything else he had seen, and its furniture might have come from an antique shop. They were standing in a large living-room, comfortable enough; strange to his senses only because it was so old-fashioned in its appointments. There were actually antimacassars on the overstuffed chairs! A wide staircase with worn brass treads wound from one corner to the sleeping quarters above.