der. 'The doctor changed the interval. It's too soon. Til tell him.'
Gertrude sighed. 'Mr. Duff?' she said.
'Yes, Miss Gertrude.'
'Shall we see you at dinner?'
'Yes, indeed. Thank you.'
'That will be very pleasant,' she said graciously, and withdrew, making for tiie parlor.
Alice ripped out the sheet of paper, separated the copy, and handed the original to Maud.
Maud grinned. She held it carelessly and trundled off toward the kitchen.
Isabel said, 'I think . . .' She hesitated. 'Will you excuse me? I have some things to attend to.' She swooped away.
Alice and Duff were alone. She handed him the carbon copy of her work.
'He's fixed it,' she said, still grim. 'You see if he hasn't.'
20
At five o'clock that afternoon, Fred pulled the big car up by the side of a dirt road, in a pleasant spot, where woods grew up a little slope at their right, and the road fell away before them down a hill and bent along the course of a brook. The silence was perfumed with pine and the smell of warm dust. There was no traffic. There was peace.
Alice leaned back on the cushions beside Duff and sighed, 'I wish we'd brought a picnic.'
Fred squirmed around to face them over the top of the front seat. 'We've been gone nearly an hour. Is it all right to stay away so long?'
'He ought to be safe,' said Duff cheerfully. 'Killeen's there and Susan's there. The will's signed and the will's gone. And Alice is here with the pillbox.'
'The pillbox,' said Alice, wonderingly.
'We won't start with that,' said Duff, 'but we'll get to it.' He passed cigarettes and stretched out his long legs. 'Well, no soap on the telephone call. The telegraph office sent my wire up to Susan by somebody who happened to
be going that way. He doesn't know, they don't know, what time it got to her. Late, says they. Susan, the source of our impression that the call was maJde around eleven, is frank to say that she is by no means sure. It was raining, she thinks. The rain fell from eleven on. The tele' phone company doesn't take kindly to looking up their records, which rather leads me to believe that their records aren't so very complete. They say they'll try. But they can't tell me, right now, when that call was made. And you kids, right there La the house, never heard it at all.'
'We can't help it,' said Alice. 'We just didn't'
'Why didn't you, I wonder?'
Fred said, 'Ilie only thing I can say is that the phone sounds pretty dim when you're in Innes's room with the door closed. And aroimd eleven o'clock ... uh ... we were both in the closet, it so happens.'
'That's right, we were,' said Alice, very solemnly, because she wanted ta smile.
'Another thing,' Fred went on. 'If the water is running in the bathroom right next to the backstairs there, I guess I couldn't hear any bell. Well, it was running about eleven ten.'
Alice said, 'That was me.'
'And then again, I was in there myself about twelve o'clock,' said Fred, matter-of-fact.
'Thanks,' said Duff. 'It's a pleasure to listen to intelligent people. But do you know, I don't think we're going to find out exactly when that phone rang.'
'Why does it matter so much?'
'Perhaps it doesn't,' said Duff placidly. 'After all, if we can't prove it rang at eleven o'clock or nearly, neither can we prove that it didn't. I mean, vice versa, of course.'
Alice and Fred looked bewildered.
'So we'll build up what we know, doing without the one little fact it seems we can't have. Settle down, you kids, and breathe the nice fresh air. I'ingoing to talk for quite a while.'
Having made this statement, he said nothing. The was good. They were far, far away from the Whitloc! house, and peace settied cozily around them. Alice relaxed. She was glad that Innes had insisted tliat Art Killeen
stay at the house. It's better, she thought, with just us. Duff was the most peaceful man in the world, and one needn't strain oneself with Fred, of course. She smiled lazily at Fred, who took off his cap and put his feet up.
'If you're sure Innes is O.K.,' he murmured.
'Oh, Inues has fixed that,' said Alice sleepily.
'I'll be goldamed if I'd have bought them off,' said Fred. 'He let them get away with it. He appeased them, that's what he did.'
'He didn't want to die.'
'Nuts,' said Fred. 'So nobody wants to die.' He muttered something under his breath.
'No isolationist, he,' said Duff suddenly. He jerked his thumb at Fred, and Alice giggled. Fred ruffled up his hair with his fine hand and grinned sheepishly.
