Page:Chipperfield--Unseen Hands.djvu/76

64 "Mine." He spoke quietly; but there was that in his tone which had caused more than one defiant malefactor to "come across" without further demur, and Cissie dropped her eyes. "Allow me, please."

He took her bag from her unresisting hand, placed it on a carved chest which stood against the wall and turned to Miss Meade.

"Your telephone is in the library, is it not? I should like to use it for a moment. Are there any extensions?"

"Only one, and that is in my sister's room," Miss Meade replied. "If you turn it off and shut the library-door you will have absolute privacy."

"Thank you. Can you tell me Peters's home address?" "He has no one except a married sister who lives over in New Dorp, Staten Island. I will get the address for you."

As she hurried away he turned once more to the girl.

"Miss Chalmers, I shall want a little talk with you in about an hour."

She bowed stiffly and turning upon her heel walked down the hall toward the back staircase, while he entered the library. Each interview with a different member of this strangely ill-assorted family made him feel that he was being carried deeper and deeper into a current of cross purposes, and the enigma of the angry young woman's interrupted speech recurred to him again and again in the minutes that followed.

How would she have completed that sentence if a warning hand had not been laid across her lips? What or who could it be with whom she would not live in the same