Clara came down to the library to tell me that Mary was locked in her room and crying; she could hear her through the door.
As Mary was one of those self-contained young women who seem amply able to take care of themselves, the news was almost shocking.
To add to my bewilderment, when I had got the smelling salts and hurried up to her, she refused at first to let me in.
“Go away,” she said.
“Please go away.”
“Let me give you the salts.
I needn’t come in.”
A moment later, however, she threw the door wide open and faced me, half defiantly.
“It’s nothing,” she said.
“I was low in my mind, that’s all.”
She forced a smile.
“I have a fit like this every so often. They’re not serious.”
“Has anything happened, Mary?”
“Nothing.
I’m just silly.
You know, or maybe you don’t; living around in other people’s houses, having nothing.
It gets me sometimes.”
I came nearer to liking her then than I ever had, and I wondered if the sight of Dick, intent on Judy and Judy’s safety, had not precipitated the thing.
After all, she was pretty and she was young.
I patted her on the arm.
“Maybe I’ve done less than my duty, Mary,” I said.
“I’m a selfish woman and lately, with all this tragedy—”
And then she began to cry again. Softly, however, and rather hopelessly.
When I went downstairs again I wondered if she was not frightened, too; after all, her loneliness was nothing new to her.
I can look back on Mary now, as I can look back on all the other actors in our drama.
But she still remains mysterious to me, a queer arrogant creature, self-conscious and sex-conscious, yet with her own hours of weakness and despair.
The other incident was when Dick received a telephone call, rather late in the evening.
That must have been around eleven o’clock.
Judy and he had spent the intervening hours together, the door open out of deference to my old-fashioned ideas, but with Dick curled up comfortably on her bed in deference to their own!
He came leisurely down to the telephone when I called him, but the next moment he was galvanized into action, rushed into the hall, caught up his overcoat and hat, and shouted up the stairs to Judy.
“Got to run, honey.
Something’s happened, and the star reporter is required.”
“Come right up here and say good-night!”
“This is business,” he called back, grinning.
“I can kiss you any time.”
And with that he was out of the house and starting the engine of his dilapidated Ford. I could hear him rattling and bumping down the drive while Judy was still calling to him from above.
Chapter Eight
I WAS ASTONISHED THE next morning to have Clara announce Inspector Harrison before I was dressed.
I looked at the clock, and it was only half past eight.
Clara plainly considered the call ill-timed.
“I can ask him to come back, ma’am.”
“Not at all.
You have no idea what he wants, I suppose?”
“Joseph let him in.
If you’d like some coffee first.”
But I wanted no coffee.
I threw on some clothing—Judy was still asleep—and when I got down Mr. Harrison was standing in the lavatory doorway, thoughtfully gazing up at the skylight.
He looked tired and untidy, and his eyes were blood-shot.
“I’ve taken the liberty of asking your butler for a cup of coffee.
I’ve been up all night.”