'Oh, I don't think you'll tell her very much now,' he said pleasantly. 'You've missed yoiu' chance.' His hands took the pillow's edge. 'You shouldn't have come back.'
'My brother will tell her,' Emily said sharply.
'Maybe he'll try,' said the big blond dangerous man. 'But it will be too late.' He jerked at the pillow. Her head bounced.
'No,' said Emily feebly. 'No use . . .'
'She doesn't know her father,' the man said, quite softly and reasonably. 'Why will she believe what he tells her? If he can find her, to tell her anything. There isn't any proof, you know. There never will be.'
'Then . . .'
'Oh, I can't afford to have you mLxing her up before the wedding, Miss McCauley. There's a reason—'
Emily tried to reach the bell-push, but he didn't permit it. The pillow came down upon her face. The last thing she tliought in triumph and also in defeat was: 'This proves it! At last!'
Richardson Bartee watched the time on his wrist. He took plenty of time. When enough had gone by, he put the pillow back where it had been before.
He crossed the very silent, the breathless room and opened the door 1by the shank of the handle, smearing the place where his fingers had to touch it. People were standing in doorways, talking. He dodged a red-haired woman in a mink jacket, hand to his hat, obscuring his face. He got the thirty feet to the door at the end of the wing. Then he was in the parking lot.
His car was not in the parking lot, but around the comer, snug to a flowering bush. It was only a rented car, of coiurse, but Dick Bartee hadn't risked more than he knew was necessary. He was older and wiser than he had been seventeen years ago.
Twenty minutes later, he parked the rented car, crossed the sidewalk, punched the bell.
'Dick? Darling?'
He ran up. He was still holding Nan when the phone rang.
Johnny went home after all, and the phone was ringing as he got there.
'She couldn't have died!' he exploded, when Dorothy's voice had told him.
'The doctor says—it sometimes happens—to a sick and tired heart.' Dorothy was crying.
Johnny's mind was churning. Why, he had just seen Emily! Could not tell the girls what Emily had said to him. Wasn't free to tell them, yet. He didn't want to be a man keeping a stubborn secret and the girls trying to guess what it was. He wouldn't put them or himself in that position. Could not even say he'd seen her.
But how could she have died!
'Look, Dotty,' he said, 'would you like the loan of my mother?'
'Dick is here,' Dorothy sobbed, 'but I think . . . Oh, Johnny, we could use her.'
So Johnny hung up, dashed out, roared down two blocks to the Miller's house, rousted his parents out of their bridge game.
'I'll take you in, Barbara,' his father said. 'You go on home with John now. Pack. I'll explain to the Millers.'
Johnny said, 'Wait. I want you both to remember—you don't know a thing about the hospital calling me tonight.'
'You saw Emily, Johnny?'
'Yes, but you mustn't say so. Mind, now.'
'Why not?'
'Because Emily asked me to do something. Secretly.''
'You are still going to do it?' his mother asked tearfully, 'now that she . . . ?'
'Of course, I'm going to do it,' said Johnny fiercely. 'I said I would.'
CHAPTER 4
Johnny was acquainted with one of the chaplains at the prison, a man they called Father Klein. Johnny had talked with him about a convict there, in the course of doing research for Roderick Grimes. So, by ten o'clock the next morning, Johnny was in the chaplain's little office, throwing himself upon the man's mercy.
'You'd like me to tell him about his sister's death?' asked Father Klein.
'I've got to see him myself,' said Johnny. 'She sent me on a—a mission. Can you help me?'
'Is it about his daughter?' asked the chaplain promptly.
'It is.' Johnny felt surprise.
'Then I'll fetch him. Would it be better if I told him about Miss Editli?'
'Edithr
'I believe she called herself Emily.'
/ changed all the names. I luid to. Johnny remembered. 'I wish you would,' he said gratefully, and then he waited.
