"Well, you know the nature of this case." Creighton hesitated. "A confession would be very useful--if you could get it!"

"Crumbs!" gasped Miss Doyle. "Did _she_ do it?"

"I have no definite proof--yet. There's just enough evidence to warrant our taking a warm interest in her. This sudden departure from Hambleton may be--flight!"

"Oh-ho. And she chose her time while you were here, thus avoiding any embarra.s.sing farewell scene with you! Quite so. Leave her to me, Mr.

Creighton. I'll wire you from Liverpool or Buenos Aires or Paris--"

"Or Hoboken or Harlem!" he corrected her.

"Much more likely."

He sent away the telephone, ordered fresh coffee, lighted a cigarette and glanced at his watch. Two courses were open to him. He could put in the afternoon at the office and thereby clear up a lot of stuff for Rose and Jimmy, returning late to Hambleton as he had planned, or he could catch a train that would get him there just in time for dinner.

Um.

He caught the train that was to get him there just in time for dinner.

Bates, meeting him in the hall and relieving him of his bag, dashed his hopes forthwith.

"I'm afraid we weren't expecting you, sir," said the butler apologetically. "Miss Ocky is dining at Mrs. Bolt's. I'll have something ready for you in about half-an-hour, sir. Will that be all right, sir?"

"Fine, Bates; thank you."

"A judgment on me for my sins of omission!" he told himself philosophically. "I should have stayed on the job at the office."

He went and put his head in at the dining-room door, where Merrill had just commenced his solitary dinner. The young man signaled to him instantly that he had a communication to make. Bates had vanished to the upper floor with his bag, and when Creighton had a.s.sured himself that there was no one in the pantry, he stepped quickly to Merrill's side.

"I wanted to tell you that Miss Copley and the Mackay woman had a long talk in Miss Copley's room very late last night--or early this morning, rather. It was nearly four o'clock when Janet went to bed. They were talking about something very--well, _fiercely_. Almost quarreling. I couldn't make out the words. That's all, sir; I should really have reported this to you over the wire."

"So you should, my boy, so you should," muttered Creighton absently.

"No harm done this time, fortunately."

He slipped away before the butler should return, and went out to the veranda to wait until something had been prepared for him. He was glad of the brief opportunity to be alone with his thoughts.

Merrill's latest bit of information was disturbing in the extreme--so disturbing that he had to force his mind to consider a possibility from which it shrank aghast. The two women had "talked fiercely." They had "almost quarreled." _What about_? A hypothetical answer came to him so ugly that it chilled him to the bone.

Granted that Janet Mackay, from motives yet obscure, had killed Simon Varr, had Miss Ocky somehow learned the truth and become an accessory after the crime? Swayed by her dislike of Simon and her friendship for her companion of a score of years, had she condoned a crime and helped a murderess to escape? What was that she had once said? "Janet and I are fearfully responsible for each other!"

_Oof_! He took out his handkerchief and vigorously rubbed at the moist palms of his hands.

He had sat in this very same spot the night before and worried over Miss Ocky's probable reaction to a theory of Janet's guilt, but he had not dreamed of anything so terrible as this. Ocky an accessory!

Finished with his palms, he shifted the handkerchief to his brow.

An unwelcome memory stirred in him of the scene the evening before when he had leaped the piazza rail in pursuit of the monk. He could feel again her grip on his arm. Had she known that the black figure was Janet and sought to restrain him lest he catch her? Obvious! And he had ascribed that action to timidity or even--blatant a.s.s!--to fear for his safety. Fear! As if October Copley knew the meaning of the word either for herself or any one else! "Afraid for his safety?" His cheeks were red as he spared a mirthless laugh for an egotistical idiot.

"Dinner is served, sir," announced Bates, appearing in his silent fashion around the corner of the house. "It is not very elaborate, I'm afraid, sir."

"It will be ample," Creighton a.s.sured him, and added a trifle bitterly, "I don't seem to have much appet.i.te this evening."

_XXII: A Cry in the Night_

During the progress of that mournful meal his discomfort was vastly increased by the sudden reflection that he was now confronted with a most disagreeable necessity. He bit his lip and frowned, strongly tempted deliberately to sidestep a task so uncongenial.

No--he couldn't shirk it! Come what might, he would see this through and force himself to act in every respect as he would have acted were Ocky not involved. She was clean and straight herself, even if misguided loyalty to Janet had caused her momentarily to swerve from the narrow path of rect.i.tude, and it would be no compliment to her if he were to scamp his job. Antagonists they might be in this contest of wits, but she was too sporting ever to want him to do aught but play the game for all that was in him.

"What time will Miss Copley be back?" he asked the butler.

"She said about ten, sir."

That would give him ample time for what he proposed to do. The dreary dinner ended, he went upstairs as though going to his room, but he did not get quite so far. The hall was empty. The house was still. He knew there was small chance of any one interrupting him while he worked.

Softly, he turned the k.n.o.b of Miss Ocky's door, slipped inside and closed it again behind him. He crossed the room and drew the curtains of the French window before taking his torch from his pocket.

Then, tight-lipped, he set to work.

An hour pa.s.sed before his search, swift, silent and sure, approached its end. He had found nothing to incriminate Janet Mackay, nothing to connect her departure with any guilty knowledge thereof on the part of Miss Ocky. He smiled contentedly at the result, exulting in his failure, then sobered suddenly as the light from his torch, playing over her desk, discovered to him a neat, leather-bound book with the word "Diary" stamped in gold across its top cover.

A diary! Why in thunder did people keep 'em? Ocky had got the habit from keeping notes for her books, he supposed. Silly things, always getting their owners into trouble! He glared at the innocent book a full minute before he reluctantly opened it and sought the entries for the past few weeks. There were not many, thank goodness; she was not a faithful diarist. He scanned them rapidly, gathering courage as it grew plain that there was nothing here the whole world might not read.

Then he caught his breath and stood transfixed as one entry, dated three days back, sped its message to his brain.

"The usual talk with P. C. last night from balcony to balcony. He is amusing and very entertaining--amazingly kind and sympathetic despite his profession, which must tend to harden a man--though he will not admit it!" So much was in her bold, firm writing, but underneath a line had been added in fainter, more uncertain script. "Why couldn't we have met twenty years ago!"

Creighton shut the book quickly, flicked off his torch, stood motionless in the dark. His breast was a chaos of wild, conflicting emotions. There was rejoicing at what he had found, loathing for the way he had found it, terror of the problems it portended. That regretful line in her diary revealed some feeling for him, he felt sure, but what would become of that newborn sentiment when she learned that he had--

The raucous blare of a motor-horn from the direction of the driveway cut sharply through his abstraction. He leaped for the door and gained the hall in safety, then sauntered downstairs to find not one arrival but two. Miss Ocky had returned ahead of schedule, and a messenger on a motorcycle had come with a telegram.

"Telegram for Creighton."

"Right here." He scrawled a signature in the book, opened the wire and read it by his flash-light. "No answer."

He read it again as the boy putt-putted off into the darkness.

"_We leave for Montreal to-night. Cheers. Can I have one on you?

Address General Delivery, Montreal. K. Doyle._"

He struck a match and held it to the corner of the yellow sheet. By the time it was burned and the charred fragments crunched beneath his heel, Miss Ocky had garaged the car and come around to the front steps.

"h.e.l.lo," she said, rather wearily. "Never dreamed you'd be back already!"

"Couldn't stay away," he said lightly. "Have a nice time at the Bolts?"

"Rotten," answered Miss Ocky tersely. "My own fault--I've been low in my mind all day." She pulled off her driving gloves and waved with them toward the veranda. "Come and give me a cigarette."

"What has been worrying you?" he asked her quietly when they were settled in the cozy corner. "Anything serious?"