The telephone bell rang, and Camille answered it. Then she pressed her palm on the transmitter.
“Preston,” she said laconically. “He wants to speak to you at once.”
Stothert took the instrument.
“That you, Captain Preston?” he asked.
“No, I can’t see you to-night.”
“Yes. Almost any time to-morrow would suit me.”
“I am sorry. I have no further news as yet, but I hope to have some soon.”
“Oh, yes, we are getting on famously, and on the right line, I feel sure. By the way, I take it the announcement of your approaching marriage in to-day’s papers is official?”
“It is. Then I congratulate you. Good night, Captain Preston.”
“He has not read the announcement about the exhumation, apparently, and it was no affair of mine to tell him,” Stothert remarked, when he had rung off. “We must tell him something soon about Jessica, if only to keep him quiet. By the way, Stapleton told me recently that Levi Schomberg had hinted to him more than once that Mrs. Hartsilver was a designing woman. What can Schomberg’s reason have been for saying what we know to be manifestly untrue?”