The cold water his imagination had needed was supplied by that suggestion. He started to speak, stammered, fell silent for a moment and then said, “Heck! The FBI probably thought of that angle ten seconds after they realized what I was talking about!”
“But they didn’t mention it, Duff!”
His smile was faint, rueful. “They have a way of not mentioning all they’re thinking about. Nix, Eleanor, but nix! I am not going to expose myself to another reprimand for taking up their time over nothing.”
Her expression was disappointed, then angry — as if she were going to argue — and finally, unemotional. She knew about arguing with Duff when his mind was made up; it was like trying to talk a hole in a rock.
“At least,” she said, after a while, “we might sort of keep watching Harry — or his room, anyhow. Then, if anything did happen—”
He nodded. “I was thinking that.”
She picked up the carpet beater and turned her back. He saw the “one-quarter profile”
again and heard himself say, “There’s a dandy movie tonight at the Coconut Grove Theater, if you’d like—”
“I’m hay riding with Scotty Smythe,” she answered. “That lamb!” She attacked a carpet Duff had hung for her.
Several evenings later, Harry Ellings, sitting on the front porch as usual, smoking a cigar, listening as usual to the radio, announced he was going to take a moonlight stroll. He announced it loudly through an open window. Upstairs, poring over a textbook, Duff vaguely heard and at first dismissed the words. Harry didn’t go for many strolls, owing to his bad legs, but occasionally he took a preslumber ramble, and this evening, warm, moon-white, was an invitation.