“Some people wouldn’t call it wrecking a future to lay away a million
dollars,” said Anderson ominously. He came closer to Dale, fixing her
with his eyes. “Do you know _where_ Bailey is now?” He spoke slowly and
menacingly.
She did not flinch.
“No.”
The detective paused.
“Miss Ogden,” he said, still with that hidden threat in his voice, “in
the last minute or so the Union Bank case and certain things in this
house have begun to tie up pretty close together. Bailey disappeared
this morning. Have you heard from him since?”
Her eyes met his without weakening, her voice was cool and composed.
“No.”
The detective did not comment on her answer. She could not tell from
his face whether he thought she had told the truth or lied. He turned
away from her brusquely.
“I’ll ask you to bring Miss Van Gorder here,” he said in his
professional voice.
“Why do you want her?” Dale blazed at him rebelliously.
He was quiet. “Because this case is taking on a new phase.”
“You don’t think I know anything about that money?” she said, a little
wildly, hoping that a display of sham anger might throw him off the
trail he seemed to be following.
He seemed to accept her words, cynically, at their face value.
“No,” he said, “but you know somebody who does.” Dale hesitated, sought
for a biting retort, found none. It did not matter; any respite, no
matter how momentary, from these probing questions, would be a relief.
She silently took one of the lighted candles and left the living-room
to search for her aunt.
Left alone, the detective reflected for a moment, then picking up the
one lighted candle that remained, commenced a systematic examination of
the living-room. His methods were thorough, but if, when he came to the
end of his quest, he had made any new discoveries, the reticent
composure of his face did not betray the fact. When he had finished he
turned patiently toward the billiard room—the little flame of his
candle was swallowed up in its dark recesses—he closed the door of the
living-room behind him. The storm was dying away now, but a few flashes
of lightning still flickered, lighting up the darkness of the deserted
living-room now and then with a harsh, brief glare.
A lightning flash—a shadow cast abruptly on the shade of one of the
French windows, to disappear as abruptly as the flash was blotted
out—the shadow of a man—a prowler—feeling his way through the
lightning-slashed darkness to the terrace door. The detective? Brooks?
The Bat? The lightning flash was too brief for any observer to have
recognized the stealing shape—if any observer had been there.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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