“Thank you. And now I may tell you that both your mother and Ada have been poisoned.”
“Mother and Ada poisoned?” She echoed the words vaguely, as if they were only half intelligible to her; and for several moments she sat motionless, staring stonily out of flintlike eyes. Slowly her gaze became fixed on Markham.
“I think I’ll take your advice,” she said. “I have a girl chum in Atlantic City. . . . This place is really becoming too, too creepy.” She forced a faint smile. “I’m off for the seashore this afternoon.” For the first time the girl’s nerve seemed to have deserted her.
“Your decision is very wise,” observed Vance. “Go, by all means; and arrange to stay until we have settled this affair.”
She looked at him in a spirit of indulgent irony.
“I’m afraid I can’t stay so long,” she said; then added: “I suppose mother and Ada are both dead.”
“Only your mother,” Vance told her. “Ada recovered.”
“She would!” Every curve of her features expressed a fine arrogant contempt. “Common clay has great resistance, I’ve heard. You know, I’m the only one standing between her and the Greene millions now.”
“Your sister had a very close call,” Markham reprimanded her. “If we had not had a doctor on guard, you might now be the sole remaining heir to those millions.”
“And that would look frightfully suspicious, wouldn’t it?” Her question was disconcertingly frank. “But you may rest assured that if I had planned this affair, little Ada would not have recovered.”