"Poor Dick has proved my case for me better than I expected," he
said, regarding the still, unbreathing heap beneath the raincoat.
He swerved toward the detective.
"Mr. Anderson," he said with dignified pleading, "I ask you to use
your influence, to see that these two ladies find some safer spot
than this for the night."
Lizzie bounced up from her chair, instanter.
"Two?" she wailed. "If you know any safe spot, lead me to it!"
The Doctor overlooked her sudden eruption into the scene. He
wandered back again toward the huddle under the raincoat, as if
still unable to believe that it was--or rather had been--Richard
Fleming.
Miss Cornelia spoke suddenly in a low voice, without moving a muscle
of her body.
"I have a strange feeling that I'm being watched by unfriendly eyes,"
she said.
Lizzie clutched at her across the table.
"I wish the lights would go out again!" she pattered. "No, I don't
neither!" as Miss Cornelia gave the clutching hand a nervous little
slap.
During the little interlude of comedy, Billy, the Japanese,
unwatched by the others, had stolen to the French windows, pulled
aside a blind, looked out. When he turned back to the room his face
had lost a portion of its Oriental calm--there was suspicion in his
eyes. Softly, under cover of pretending to arrange the tray of food
that lay untouched on the table, he possessed himself of the key to
the front door, unperceived by the rest, and slipped out of the room
like a ghost.
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