“Success at last,” smiled Ellery. “Are you ready?”
“Oh, yes! I feel so much better, now that we’re actually to leave. Do you think we’ll have a hard time? I saw Mr. Keith bring those cans in. Petrol, weren’t they? Nice of him. I never did believe such a nice young man—” She flushed. There were hectic spots in her checks and her eyes were brighter than they had been for days. Her voice seemed less husky, too.
“It may be hard going through the drifts, but the car is equipped with chains. With luck we should make it. It’s a powerful—”
Ellery stopped very suddenly indeed, his eyes fixed on the worn carpet at his feet, stony yet startled.
“Whatever is the matter, Mr. Queen?”
“Matter?” Ellery raised his eyes and drew a deep, deep breath. “Nothing at all. God’s in His heaven and all’s right with the world.” She looked down at the carpet. “Oh... the sun!” With a little squeal of delight she turned to the window. “Why, Mr. Queen, it’s stopped snowing. There’s the sun setting — at last!”
“And high time, too,” said Ellery briskly. “Will you please get your things on? We leave at once.” He picked up her bags and left her, walking with a springy vigor that shook the old boards. He crossed the corridor to his room opposite hers and began, whistling, to pack his bag.
The living-room was noisy-with a babble of adieux. One would have said that this was a normal household, with normal people in a normal human situation. Alice was positively gay, quite as if she were not leaving a fortune in gold for what might turn out to be all time.
She set her purse down on the mantel next to her mother’s chromo, fixed her hat, flung her arms about Mrs. Reinach, pecked gingerly at Mrs. Fell’s withered cheek, and even smiled forgivingly at Dr. Reinach. Then she dashed back to the mantel, snatched up her purse, threw one long enigmatic glance at Keith’s drawn face, and hurried outdoors as if the devil himself were after her.
Thorne was already in the car, his old face alight with incredible happiness, as if he had been reprieved at the very moment he was to set his foot beyond the little green door. He beamed at the dying sun.