She ignored the chair, but answered his question. “Joyce Mills. Where is my father?”
“Your father? The last time I saw him he was going out of a door. He’s been assigned to a case, a rather big case. Has to do with what he calls ballistics. He—”
He came to a sudden pause. The girl’s face was a study. Surprise, doubt, joy, sorrow, laughter, tears; they were all there, registered in quick succession.
“A case! A case!” she fairly shrieked. “And I thought he was in jail.”
She crumpled into a chair.
“Well,” said Drew quietly, “he might have been. But he isn’t. And he’s not likely to be. So you can set your heart at rest on that.”
Having regained her self-composure somewhat, she leaned forward as if expecting to be told more.
Drew humored her. He told, so far as he knew it, the whole story of the downfall and the redemption of Newton Mills.
“Oh!” she breathed. “And you saved him. You and that boy!”
“Johnny Thompson saved your father,” Drew smiled. “The rest of us only helped a little.”