Part 29 (2/2)
”It's a risk,” Dorcas was saying, ”and if mother, catches on, she'll give me Hail Columbia, but I just had to see you! Do you know what they're saying about your uncle's murder, now?”
”No; and I don't want to hear from you. Please, dear, let's leave all that horror out of our conversation. We get so few moments together and I need every one of them to tell you how I love you.”
”Then,” the red lips pouted, ”when am I to tell you how much I love you?”
”Oh, Dork! you do say the sweetest things! Tell me, darling, tell me, first, then I'll tell you----”
”We may as well both talk at once,” Dorcas laughed. ”We can say the same things,--it'll really be a duet!”
”All right, say with me,--I love you. Ready, one, two, three, go!”
”I love you!” they said in concert.
”No fun,” decided Dorcas; ”I want you to tell me separately.”
So Richard did, to such an extent and with so much detail and reiteration that the moments flew by, and it was time to go home before the other side of the s.h.i.+eld was painted.
”But, Ricky, dear,” Dorcas said finally, ”I must talk a little about this awful thing. I've heard a lot of hints and whispers,--for mother and Kate shut up as soon as I come into the room,--and I want to know this: Is your aunt, Miss Prall, suspected of killing Sir Herbert?”
”Good Lord, no! What an awful idea! Where did you dig that up?”
”I've heard a lot, I tell you. And some people do think so!”
”But it's absurd! Impossible! Also, I won't have such talk going around!
You must tell me, Dork, where you heard it! Tell me all you know.”
”I don't _know_ anything, Rick, but I think you ought to do something definite in the way of detective work. Those men don't get anywhere?”
”Why, what do you mean? What do you know about that, Little Peachbloom?”
”I don't know anything. And you don't, either. But unless you find out something there'll be trouble. Now, Rick, stop treating me as a baby and talk about it. Who do you think killed him?”
”Honestly, Dorrie, I think, just as he wrote, some women did it. I don't know who they were, and I'm not sure I care to know,--for they were, no doubt, some--some people with whom we have no concern.”
”That may be,” said the girl, very soberly, ”and it may not be. You must realize, Rick, that those silly little chorus girls might have had reason to hate the man, but they could scarcely compa.s.s that killing.”
Bates looked at her in astonishment.
”What _do_ you mean?” he said, slowly; ”that is, what are you hinting?”
”Only that I think the murderers are of a higher type of women than giddy youngsters,----”
”Murderers can't be of a very high type----”
”I don't mean high type of character, but of brains. To my mind, that deed implies women of cleverness and mental power.”
”Such as,----?”
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