Page:Burton Stevenson--The marathon mystery.djvu/126

104 been ever since that affair of Miss Holladay. You’ll never get it out. But I’m glad you’re here. I’ve an idea that we’re just on the threshold of a very remarkable mystery, and you can help a lot.”

“Then the murder wasn’t the end?”

“No; I fancy it was only the beginning. Now tell me how you happened to be with Mrs. Tremaine last night.”

“Tremaine had an important business engagement,” I said, “which he couldn’t break. He’d promised to take her to the theatre and had secured seats. Rather than disappoint her, he asked me to take his place.”

“And she didn’t object?”

“She made the best of it, I guess.”

“She seemed to be getting a good deal of fun out of it.”

“She was. She’s the most unconventional creature I ever met. She’d interest you, Godfrey.”

“I don’t doubt it in the least. But Tremaine interests me, too. You don’t happen to know what this business engagement was?” and he looked at me with a queer smile.

“No; I suppose that it had something to do with his railroad.”

“His railroad?”

I related briefly the project in which Tremaine was engaged.

“Well, perhaps it was connected with that,” Godfrey said, when I had finished, “but indirectly—very indirectly. He spent the evening in Dickie Delroy’s box at the opera.”