Page:Arthur Stringer--The House of Intrigue.djvu/142

130 ness. And Miss Ledwidge here for the other witness, please!'" He looked back over his shoulder at the trained nurse. "It's Aunt Agatha, isn't it, who's the short-sighted one?" he inquired.

"And slightly deaf," amended the trained nurse, with an ironic flutter of her eyelids. But that was her only expression of human amusement in the incident.

The little old weasel turned back to me.

"Can you do that?" he inquired.

I nodded my head.

"Then try it," he commanded.

Since he wanted acting, I decided to give him his money's worth. I let my head roll back and my body go limp between the sheets. I relaxed my jaw-muscles and let my lips fall apart. Then I did my whisper act. I did it brokenly, weakly, as though it was coming with my last gasp of life.

The old scoundrel nodded his head, promptly, approvingly.

"Some actress, eh?" I impertinently inquired. But he ignored that irrelevancy.

"That is just what we want, my dear, just what we want! And there's one thing more. I mean these buzzards down-stairs who are all wondering which way the Bartlett estate is going to go. There