He took the paper. The head-lines at the top of the third page riveted themselves upon his brain.
RELATIVE SEEKS MISSING MAN
Body of Roger Kenwick to Be Exhumed at Mont-Mer
The body of Roger Kenwick, son of the late Charles Kenwick, of New York, who died at Rest Hollow last November, is to be exhumed for examination on the demand of Mrs. Hilda Fanwell, of Reno, Nevada. Mrs. Fanwell, a widow, arrived from her home last week in search of her brother, Ralph Regan, who has been a resident of Mont-Mer for the last two years. A letter received from him in the early part of November indicated, according to the sister's statement, that he was in failing health. Being unable to come to him then, owing to the illness of her husband, Mrs. Fanwell wrote several letters, none of which were answered. The description of her brother, which she furnished the police, has resulted in a demand to the authorities to have the body of Roger Kenwick exhumed.
Kenwick let the paper slide to the table. "My Lord!" he murmured. "Jarvis, what would you do about it?"
"Why should you do anything about it? This Fanwell woman is apparently the oldest Gold Dust twin. Let her do your work."
But Kenwick's eyes were still fixed upon the paper. Over it a drop of acid from the developing-tray was eating a slow passage. "But to see my name tied up to a gruesome thing like that——Why, you can't imagine how it——It gives me the feeling that—that I've just begun on this thing. And I thought when I came in here that I had all the cards in my hands."
He got up from the table slowly, like a hospital patient testing his strength on the first day out of bed. And Jarvis, after one glance at his pale face, rose too. "You've got nothing to worry about——," he began. But Kenwick waved the soothing aside with a fierce impatience.
"Nothing to worry about?" he cried hotly. "Don't offer me that stuff, Jarvis. How do I know—how can I ever know what I may have done during those ghastly ten months?"
CHAPTER XIV
When Kenwick entered the St. Germaine on the evening after his interview with Jarvis, a man rose from the farther corner of the lobby and came toward him. "Kenwick!" he cried, and held out his hand. "I thought you never would come. I've been waiting here an eternity." It was Clinton Morgan.