Carroll shrugged. "She was probably sending some of Mr. Lawrence's
belongings to him in Nashville."
"Huh! There're some things even a great detective like you don't know.
Don't you suppose I noticed that the clothes she was packing in that
suit-case were _hers_?"
"Really?"
"You bet your life, I noticed. You see," she grew suddenly confidential.
"There's a certain kind of perfume Sis uses--awful expensive. Roland
Warren used to bring it to her. Well, I've been using it too--and Sis
never did get wise. I only used it when she did--and when she smelled
it, she didn't know that she was smelling what I had on. Well, it isn't
likely she was sending that to Gerald, is it?"
"Hardly. But are you sure she packed it?"
"I'll say I am. I saw her do it. And then two days later I saw the bottle
on her dressing table again--and so I just naturally looked to see if the
suit-case was back and it surely was."
"But perhaps it never left the house?"
"Guess again, Mr. Carroll. I know--because just before I went to Hazel's
I hunted all over for it, to get some of that extract myself. And the
suit-case wasn't there. Believe me--it's _some_ perfume, too!"
"You say Mr. Warren gave it to her?"
"He sure did. That man wasn't any piker, believe me. It costs twelve
dollars an _ounce_!"
"No?"
"Yeh--goodness knows how much a pound would cost. I used it all the
time--I knew when he gave it to Sis he meant it for me--because, like I
told you, he was simply crazy about me. Told me so dozens of times. Said
he came to see me. It used to bore him terribly when he'd have to sit in
the room and talk to Sis and Gerald."
"I fancy it did--" Carroll summoned a waiter--"A little baked Alaska
for dessert?"
"Baked Alaska! Oh! boy! you sure spoke a mouthful that time. I'm simply
_insane_ over it!"
She evidently had not exaggerated. She absorbed enough of the dessert
to have satisfied two growing men. It did Carroll good to witness her
frank enjoyment of his luncheon. She glanced at her wrist watch and
rose hastily--
"Goodness me, I've simply _got_ to be going."
"Where?"
She made a wry face: "Hazel Gresham's. Honestly, women get queer when
they grow up--get older than twenty. Hazel has been acting so
_peculiarly_ lately--"
"That's natural, isn't it, Miss Rogers? Her fiancé killed--"
"Oh! shucks! I don't mean that. That wouldn't be queer. But there's
something else bothering her. And when I try to get her to tell me what
it is, she gets right snippy and tells me to mind my own business. And
I'll tell you right now, Mr. Carroll--if there's one person in the whole
world who always minds their own business--and who doesn't pay the
slightest attention to other peoples' affairs--that person is me. I
started that a long time ago when I read something some one wrote in a
book about how much happier folks could be if they never bothered with
other folk's business--and it struck me as awfully logical. And so that's
what I've always done. Don't you think I'm sensible?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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