Page:Arthur Stringer--The House of Intrigue.djvu/202

190 "What has that been?" he just as promptly demanded.

I sat studying his face, for a minute or two, wondering just what I could tell him, asking myself just what he would expect of me. But there was a coolness and aloofness about him that frightened me. And I hadn't yet discovered just what I expected of myself.

"Instead of answering that question," I told him, "I'd rather ask you a few."

"For example?" he prompted.

"Who are the Bartletts?" I demanded.

"The Bartletts?" he meditatively repeated. "Bartletts? There must be a great many Bartletts."

"Then who is Clarissa Bartlett?" I asked.

"Why?" he casually inquired.

"I said I'd rather ask the questions," I reminded him.

"Then supposing we look 'em up in the Social Register," he quietly suggested. And I remembered how Bud had once studied the starry names in that same Social Register, though for strictly business reasons.

"I think she's sometimes called Claire," I said, going back to the problem of the Bartletts.