Leonidas knew from the electric silence that something had happened. He raised his head, and for an instant the girl’s eyes met his.
“Who is she, Cassie?” Estelle demanded in a stage whisper. “Don’t you know her?”
“I,” the girl said easily, smiling at Cassie, “am the nurse.”
Cassie needed no more.
“Dr. Livingston’s nurse!” she said. “I didn’t recognize you without that cap. Mr. Witherall hoped you’d come, and I’m so glad you did. He’s the Manila fever case, you know, and I’ve been at my wit’s end.”
That last, she thought, was nothing but God’s truth.
Walking across the room, the girl knelt by Leonidas and looked at him gravely. Then she rose and shook her head.
“Ladies, I shall have to request you to leave at once. Dr. Livingston considers it very serious when the patient’s color is apparently normal. Absolute quiet is imperative. At once, please!”
Miraculously, in less than five minutes, the last pocketbook had been found, and Tudbury’s Horse had tiptoed away.
“With tea urns and sandwiches, like Arabs into the night!” Cassie said as she returned to the living room and started drawing the curtains. “All of them! You can get up, Bill. They won’t come back. Was it soap?”
Leonidas gulped down a glass of water.
“Yes. Miss—er—”
“Horn,” the girl said. “Leslie Horn.”
“Mrs. Price,” Leonidas said, “Miss Leslie Horn. Er —you two have a lot in common, I think. Your routing of Tudbury’s Horse was masterly. And timely. We are delighted that you dropped in.” He waved her toward the green leather chair. “You could not have picked a more propitious moment.”
“I didn’t pick it,” the girl said. “I just couldn’t take that cold another second. I was frozen to the bone. Look, can you tell me—”
“You are lovely,” Cassie said. “They didn’t exaggerate a bit. You and Dow will make a simply marvelous couple. He needs someone with spirit. Between you and me, all that boy needs is a push. Bill, aren’t she and Dow going to make a marvelous couple? Here—come back!” She grabbed at the girl’s arm. “You can’t go now!”
The girl looked from Leonidas to Cassie.
“Manila fever!” she said. “Tea urns. Arabs. Slugberry’s Horse! I’m going to make a marvelous couple. Well, maybe it’s me. Maybe I’m all wrong. What is Manila fever?”
“Soap,” Leonidas told her, “and tea. And now, my dear Miss Leslie Horn, sit down. It’s very clever of you to throw us on the defensive and assume we’re demented, but before you undertake to leave, you are going to provide us with a number of explanations. Why did you come here?”
“I told you, I was cold!”
“M’yes,” Leonidas said blandly. “M’yes.”
Walking over to the terrace doors, which Cassie had forgotten to close, he removed a fur coat dangling from the outside handle. Then he stepped out on the terrace and returned with an assortment of snow-crusted luggage.
“M’yes,” he said again as he shut the doors and locked them. “Now, why did you come here? What are you doing here?”
“Well, I’m—er— I’m hunting my Aunt Medora—”
“You’re hunting your Aunt Medora?” Cassie and Leonidas spoke in unison.
“My—er—aunt. Miss Medora Winthrop.”
“Your aunt?” Cassie said. “Your aunt who?”
“Medora Winthrop. People said she’d be here.”
Cassie opened her mouth.
For a moment, Leonidas thought she was going to let loose one of her piercing screams. He wouldn’t have blamed her had she emitted a series of them. He fully intended to join in.
Then, abruptly, Cassie closed her mouth and turned to him.
“Why didn’t she ring the doorbell, then?”
“That,” Leonidas said, “is a point well taken. If you are hunting your Aunt Medora Winthrop, why do you lurk on my terrace in the snow?”
“Eavesdropping,” Cassie chimed in. “She heard me mention a nurse, and she just grabbed her chance to get in. She could have rung a doorbell. Either one. Both.”
“I am not,” Leonidas continued swiftly, “experienced in the art of aunt-hunting, but I question your methods. If I had lost an aunt, and if I thought she might be in a given house, I should unhesitatingly ring doorbells and make polite and pointed inquiries. I should not lurk on snow-bound terraces, sneaking—”
“Who sneaked?” the girl demanded.
Leonidas took from his pocket the barber-pole lipstick which Cuff had given him just before Tudbury’s Horse had charged the kitchen.
“From this,” Leonidas said, “I can only conclude that you have done considerable sneaking over a period of time. It is your lipstick, is it not?”
“That damn bag! It popped again!” the girl said.
“Zippers were better,” Cassie said. “On the whole. Zippers—”
“Cassie,” Leonidas said firmly, “we are not very vitally concerned with zippers, on the whole or otherwise. Miss Horn, what have you been doing, sneaking around my house? Why do you employ such odd measures to seek your aunt?”
‘Tell him, dear,” Cassie said. “He’ll just worm it out of you if you don’t. All those boys, you know. Rutherford says if you can get to the root of a small boy, you can get to the root of anything. So don’t make it hard. You were sweet to save us from Tudbury’s Horse, but we’re going to find out the rest. Just let down your hair, as Jock says— By the way, who does it? I adore those little curls.”
“Emil, at Joseph’s,” the girl said. “But they’re a nuisance. Hats spoil them.”
Cassie nodded understanding^, and the girl nodded back.
The two clearly had much in common, Leonidas thought. After an acquaintance of ten minutes, they understood each other perfectly, and unless he held them in check, they would probably start to exchange views on stocking runs and French dressing.
And the girl’s story, he felt sure, would be just as incredible as anything Cassie Price had ever been mixed up in.
“Miss Horn/’ he said, “I asked you why you seek your aunt here, and why you go about it in such a quaint fashion.”
“Well, really, I am hunting Aunt Medora,
