“Yes — yes, I am. How did you get here? I wired you only last night.”
“I’d left by then. I heard about it on the radio, and then the Topeka paper called me up, and I thought — well, that I ought to hurry out here in case there was anything I could do. So I caught a plane last night, and just got here.” Conway stared at her stonily. “I must say I expected a more cordial reception than this. Aren’t you even going to ask me to sit down?”
“Yes — of course — please come in.” Conway led the way to the living room, his brain still in turmoil. This didn’t make sense: this girl, who had not seen Helen for over five years, who had not communicated with her in four, suddenly popping up like this. He had to get rid of Bauer, so that he might find out why.
“What I really want to do,” Betty said as she came into the living room, “is to take a bath and get into some other clothes. When you’ve been sitting up all night, you don’t feel very fresh, do you?”
Bauer planted himself between Conway and the girl. “You never told me she had a sister,” he said again.
“Well, I—”
“Half-sister,” Betty repeated. “He probably forgot I existed. I haven’t seen Helen for years, and we never wrote, and in fact we weren’t on very good terms ever since Mama died and left everything to me, because Helen wouldn’t stay home, but went to New York. Not that there was very much.”
Conway looked at her as she spoke. She was certainly a far cry from the girl Helen had contemptuously described as a “cold little fish.” She was not little, and the predominant impression she gave was of warmth and vitality. She was dark, with large brown eyes, a delicately modeled face, and a delectable figure: the complete antithesis of Helen’s flagrantly blonde amplitude. The sparkle of her eyes belied the sobriety and matter-of-factness of her dress and speech.
“Why’d you come out here if you weren’t on very good terms with her?” Bauer asked. “Have you any information you think might help us?”
“Good heavens, no.” She looked at Conway. “I just came out because I thought I might be able to help Arthur through this dreadful tragedy.”