With a deft hand on Miss Jansen’s heartbeats, Dr Dench raised a ruddy, brown-whiskered face inquiringly toward us.
‘Shock!’ Madelyn explained. ‘Is it serious?’
The hand on the wavering breast darted toward a medicine case, and selected a vial of brownish liquid. The gaze above it continued its scrutiny of Madelyn’s slender figure.
Dr Dench was of the rugged, German type, steel-eyed, confidently sure of movement, with the physique of a splendidly muscled animal. If the servant’s tattle was to be credited, Muriel Jansen could not have attracted more opposite extremes in her suitors.
The coroner – a rusty-suited man of middle age, in quite obvious professional awe of his companion – extended a glass of water. Miss Jansen wearily opened her eyes before it reached her lips.
Dr Dench restrained her sudden effort to rise. ‘Drink this, please!’ There was nothing but professional command in his voice. If he loved the grey-pallored girl in the chair, his emotions were under superb control.
Madelyn stepped to the background, motioning me quietly.
‘I fancy I can leave now safely. I am going back to town.’
‘Town?’ I echoed.
‘I should be back by the latter part of the afternoon. Would it inconvenience you to wait here?’
‘But, why on earth – ’ I began.
‘Will you tell the butler to send around the car? Thanks!’
When Madelyn doesn’t choose to answer questions she ignores them. I subsided as gracefully as possible. As her machine whirled under the porte cochère, however, my curiosity again overflowed my restraint.
‘At least, who is Orlando Julio?’ I demanded.
Madelyn carefully adjusted her veil.
‘The man who provided the means for the death of Wendell Marsh!’ And she was gone.
I swept another glance at the trio on the side veranda, and with what I tried to convince myself was a philosophical shrug, although I knew perfectly well it was merely a pettish fling, sought a retired corner of the rear drawing room, with my pad and pencil.
After all, I was a newspaper woman, and it needed no elastic imagination to picture the scene in the city room of the Bugle if I failed to send a proper accounting of myself.
A few minutes later a tread of feet, advancing to the stairs, told me that the coroner and Dr Dench were ascending for the belated examination of Wendell Marsh’s body. Miss Jansen had evidently recovered, or been assigned to the ministrations of her maid. Once Peters, the wooden-faced butler, entered ghostily to inform me that luncheon would be served at one, but effaced himself almost before my glance returned to my writing.
I partook of the meal in the distinguished company of Sheriff Peddicord. Apparently Dr Dench was still busied in his gruesome task upstairs, and it was not surprising that Miss Jansen preferred her own apartments.
However much the sheriff’s professional poise might have been jarred by the events of the morning, his appetite had not been affected. His attention was too absorbed in the effort to do justice to the Marsh hospitality to waste time in table talk.
He finished his last spoonful of strawberry ice-cream with a heavy sigh of contentment, removed the napkin, which he had tucked under his collar, and, as though mindful of the family’s laundry bills, folded it carefully and wiped his lips with his red handkerchief. It was not until then that our silence was interrupted.
Glancing cautiously about the room, and observing that the butler had been called kitchenward, to my amazement he essayed a confidential wink.
‘I say,’ he ventured enticingly, leaning his elbow on the table, ‘what I would like to know is what became of that there other man!’
‘Are you familiar with the Fourth Dimension, Sheriff?’ I returned solemnly. I rose from my chair, and stepped toward him confidentially in my turn. ‘I believe that a thorough study of that subject would answer your question.’
It was three o’clock when I stretched myself in my corner of the drawing-room, and stuffed the last sheets of my copy paper into a special-delivery-stamped envelope.
My story was done. And Madelyn was not there to blue-pencil the Park Row adjectives! I smiled rather gleefully as I patted my hair, and leisurely addressed the envelope. The city editor would be satisfied, if Madelyn wasn’t!
As I stepped into the hall, Dr Dench, the coroner, and Sheriff Peddicord were descending the stairs. Evidently the medical examination had been completed. Under other circumstances the three expressions before me would have afforded an interesting study in contrasts – Dr Dench trimming his nails with professional stoicism, the coroner endeavouring desperately to copy the other’s sang-froid, and the sheriff buried in an owl-like solemnity.
Dr Dench restored his knife to his pocket.
‘You are Miss Mack’s assistant, I understand?’
I bowed.
‘Miss Mack has been called away. She should be back, however, shortly.’
I could feel the doctor’s appraising glance dissecting me with much the deliberateness of a surgical operation. I raised my eyes suddenly, and returned his stare. It was a virile, masterful face – and, I had to admit, coldly handsome!
Dr Dench snapped open his watch.
‘Very well then, Miss, Miss –’
‘Noraker!’ I supplied crisply.
The blond beard inclined the fraction of an inch.
‘We will wait.’
‘The autopsy?’ I ventured. ‘Has it –’
‘The result of the autopsy I will explain to – Miss Mack!’
I bit my lip, felt my face flush as I saw that Sheriff Peddicord was trying to smother a grin, and turned with a rather unsuccessful shrug.
Now, if I had been of a vindictive nature, I would have opened my envelope and inserted a retaliating paragraph that would have returned the snub of Dr Dench with interest. I flatter myself that I consigned the envelope to the Three Forks post office, in the rear of the Elite Dry Goods Emporium, with its contents unchanged.
As a part recompense, I paused at a corner drug store, and permitted a young man with a gorgeous pink shirt to make me a chocolate ice-cream soda. I was bent over an asthmatic straw when, through the window, I saw Madelyn’s car skirt the curb.
I rushed out to the sidewalk, while the
