He blinked sleepily and ran fingers through his tousled hair. “Then he lied, right enough,” he said.
“And,” she said gaily, “he was there when I got home last night.”
“Paul?”
“Yes. And he asked me to marry him.”
Sleepiness went out of Ned Beaumont’s eyes. “Did he say anything about our battle?”
“Not a word.”
“What did you say?”
“I said it was too soon after Taylor’s death for me even to engage myself to him, but I didn’t say I wouldn’t a little later, so we’ve got what I believe is called an understanding.”
He looked curiously at her.
Gaiety went out of her face. She put a hand on his arm. Her voice broke a little. “Please don’t think I’m altogether heartless,” she said, “but–oh!–I do so want to–to do what we set out to do that everything else seems–well–not important at all.”
He moistened his lips and said in a grave gentle voice: “What a spot he’d be in if you loved him as much as you hate him.”
She stamped her foot and cried: “Don’t say that! Don’t ever say that again!”
Irritable lines appeared in his forehead and his lips tightened together.
She said, “Please,” contritely, “but I can’t bear that.”
“Sorry,” he said. “Had breakfast yet?”
“No. I was too anxious to bring my news to you.”
“Fine. You’ll eat with me. What do you like?” He went to the telephone.
After he had ordered breakfast he went into the bathroom to wash his teeth, face, and hands and brush his hair. When he returned to the living-room she had removed her hat and coat and was standing by the fi replace smoking a cigarette. She started to say something, but stopped when the telephone-bell rang.
He went to the telephone. “Hello.. . . Yes, Harry, I stopped in, but you were out. . . . I wanted to ask you about–you know–the chap you saw with Paul that night. Did he have a hat? . . . He did? Sure?
And did he have a stick in his hand? . . . Oke. . . . No, I couldn’t do anything with Paul on that, Harry. Better see him yourself. . . . Yes.
‘By.”
Janet Henry’s eyes questioned him as he got up from the telephone.
He said: “That was one of a couple of fellows who claim they saw Paul talking to your brother in the street that night. He says he saw the hat, but not the stick. It was dark, though, and this pair were riding past in a car. I wouldn’t bet they saw anything very clearly.”
“Why are you so interested in the hat? Is it so important?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m only an amateur detective, but it looks like a thing that might have some meaning, one way or another.”
“Have you learned anything else since yesterday?”
“No. I spent part of the evening buying drinks for a girl Taylor used to play around with, but there wasn’t anything there.”
“Anyone I know?” she asked.
He shook his head, then looked sharply at her and said: “It wasn’t Opal, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
“Don’t you think we might be able to–to get some information from her?”
“Opal? No. She thinks her father killed Taylor, but she thinks it was on her account. It wasn’t anything she knew that sent her off–not any inside stuff–it was your letters and the Observer and things like that.”
Janet Henry nodded, but seemed unconvinced.
Their breakfast arrived.
The telephone-bell rang while they were eating. Ned Beaumont went to the telephone and said: “Hello Yes, Mom. . . . What?” He listened, frowning, for several seconds, then said: “There isn’t much you can do about it except let them and I don’t think it’ll do any harm. . No, I don’t know where he is. . . . I don’t think I will. . . . Well, don’t worry about it, Mom, it’ll be all right. . . . Sure, that’s right. . . . ‘By.” He returned to the table smiling. “Farr’s got the same idea you had,” he said as he sat down. “That was Paul’s mother. A man from the District Attorney’s office is there to question Opal.” A bright gleam awakened in his eyes. “She can’t help them any, but they’re closing in on him.”