Part 30 (1/2)
He had felt her disappearance had nothing to do with the vanis.h.i.+ng of the chauffeur. Her statement confirmed his belief.
”Durgin?” Garrison repeated. ”Didn't some Durgin, a nephew of Hardy, claim the body, up at Branchville?”
Dorothy was pale again, but resolute.
”Yes--Paul. He's Foster's brother.”
”You told me you had neither brothers nor sisters,” Garrison reminded her a little sternly. ”These were not forgotten?”
”They are stepbrothers only--by marriage. I thought I could leave them out,” she explained, flus.h.i.+ng as she tried to meet his gaze. ”Please don't think I meant to deceive you very much.”
”It was a technical truth,” he told her; ”but isn't it time you told me everything? You ran off before I could even reply to something you appeared to wish to know. You----”
”But you don't suspect me?” she interrupted, instantly reverting to the question she had put before, in that moment of her impulse to run. ”I couldn't bear it if I thought you did!”
”If I replied professionally, I should say I don't know what to think,”
he said. ”The whole affair is complicated. As a matter of fact, I cannot seem to suspect you of anything wrong, but you've got to help me clear it as fast as I can.”
She met his gaze steadily, for half a minute, then tears abruptly filled her eyes, and she lowered her gaze to the floor.
”Thank you, Jerold,” she murmured, and a thrill went straight to his heart. ”I am very much worried, and very unhappy--but I haven't done anything wrong--and nothing like that!--not even a wicked thought like that! I loved my uncle very dearly.”
She broke down and turned away to give vent to an outburst of grief.
”There, there,” said Garrison after a moment. ”We must do the best we can. If you will tell me more, my help is likely to be greater.”
Dorothy dried her eyes and resumed her courage heroically.
”I haven't asked you to be seated all this time,” she said apologetically. ”Please do--and I'll tell you all I can.”
Garrison took a chair, while Dorothy sat near him. He thought he had never seen her in a mood of beauty more completely enthralling than this one of helplessness and bravery combined.
”We are quite, well--secure from being overheard?” he said.
She went at once and closed the door.
”Alice would never listen, greatly as she is worried,” she said. ”It was she who met you at the door--Foster's wife.”
Garrison nodded. He was happy only when she came once more to her seat.
”This is your stepbrother's home?” he inquired. ”Is he here?”
”This is Alice's property,” Dorothy corrected. ”But that's way ahead of the story. You told me my uncle was poisoned by my cigars. How could that possibly have been? How did you find it out? How was it done?”
”The box had been opened and two cigars had been so loaded with poison that when he bit off one, at the end, to light it up, he got the deadly stuff on his tongue--and was almost instantly stricken.”
Despite the dimness of the light in the room Dorothy's face showed very white.
She asked; ”What kind of poison?”
He mentioned the drug.