Canadian fiction -- 20th century; Detective and mystery stories
"Are you sure of that?"
Pen merely looked at him.
"Answer my question, please!"
"I have already answered it."
"Do you expect me to believe that you undertook to save a total
stranger from the law?"
"I have stated the facts."
The detective sprang to his feet and shook a violent forefinger at
Pen--the old trick of the inquisitor. "You have seen this man before!"
"Don't shout at me," said Pen coolly. "I am not a criminal."
"As to that we'll see," he said ominously. "Did you ever hear of
accessory after the fact."
"Well, if I am a criminal," said Pen, "I don't have to testify against
myself."
"Don't argue with me if you please," he said. "Just answer my
questions."
"Answer me a question if you please," said Pen clearly.
He stared. He was not accustomed to having the tables turned like this.
Before he could explode Pen asked her question: "You are from New York,
aren't you?"
"What of it?"
"What are your rights in Maryland?"
His face turned ugly. "You'll see!" He addressed one of his men.
"Keesing, you have heard this young woman's admissions. There's a
justice of the peace over on the Island. Go to him and make the
necessary affidavit to secure a warrant for her arrest."
The man left the room. Pen believed this to be a bluff, and scornfully
smiled. Her father was impressed though. He wilted down in his chair,
and put out an imploring hand towards his daughter. He was incapable
of speaking.
"Do you want anything else of me?" Pen coolly asked her questioner.
Seeing that his threat had failed of effect, the detective judged it
prudent not to prolong this scene. "That is all for the present," he
said loftily. "You will please not leave the house."
"Thank you," said Pen, "but until I am arrested I shall do just what I
am accustomed to do."
She left the room with her head up and went on up the stairs. She was
not at all pleased with herself though. That inner voice said
remorselessly: "You have only angered him without doing Don any good."
To be sure, she had seen sympathy in the eyes of some of the reporters,
but they could not say anything of course that might endanger their
working agreement with the detectives. At the thought of danger to
herself Pen smiled. She was in the frame of mind that welcomes
persecution. But her heart was full of terror for Don. She had not
foreseen that the place would be overrun like this. He was so near!
And the detective's order to remain in the house suggested that they
suspected he might still be on the place.
On her knees at her front window she watched the men leave the house in
a body. Some shrubbery cut off her view of the gate, and she could not
tell which way they turned after passing through it. Fortunately but
an hour or two of daylight remained.
CHAPTER IV
BESIDE THE LITTLE TEMPLE
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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