Free Hasty Wedding by Mignon G. Eberhart Page B

write.
    Wait turned back to Dorcas. “Now then, Mrs Locke, when Drew talked to you last night did he say anything of his immediate plans?”
    “No.”
    “Did he make any kind of threat?”
    “Threat——”
    Jevan interrupted.
    “Dorcas, this has gone far enough! Refuse to answer——”
    “Did he threaten to do anything to stop the wedding? Had he,” said Wait in a matter-of-fact way, “any kind of hold over you?”
    “Don’t answer, Dorcas.” Jevan was at her side again, bending close over her, making her meet his eyes. “Don’t answer.”
    “I must answer.” She looked at the detective. “No! He made no threats! He had no hold whatever over me. There was nothing—nothing he could have done. He had wanted to marry me, yes. He urged me, even, to marry him. But that was all. There was nothing he could have used as a—a threat.”
    Jevan dropped her hands and stood straight again and looked, too, at the detective. There was something triumphant in that look, as if he’d scored a victory. He said, almost smiling, except it was a queer, tight smile: “Well, there you are, Mr Detective. Satisfied now, are you?”
    “No. Except that you’ve coached your wife. However …” He paused thoughtfully. Away off in the distance doors were opening and closing; there was a murmur and hum of motion and voices from the main part of the house. The guests were arriving, turning out in full numbers in order to show their support. Behave as if nothing at all had happened. It was like a motto. But tomorrow, that night even, Chicago would rock with it.
    Jevan said suddenly: “The guests are arriving. If you could postpone your inquiry…”
    Unexpectedly Wait seemed to agree. “Why not?” he said. “I’ll see you later.”
    “We are going on a wedding trip,” said Jevan. “We leave immediately after the reception.”
    “Cancel the trip,” said Wait simply and looked at his watch.
    “Cancel—look here, Wait. What do you mean by that? Are we under arrest?”
    “No.”
    “Then you can’t prevent us leaving.”
    “Oh, can’t I,” said Wait. “Try it and see.” He turned and walked to the door. Dorcas leaned forward, clutching the slippery arms of the chair. Was he actually going, leaving them? At the door he turned. “I’m giving you a break,” he said abruptly. “I could detain you for questioning until your wedding party was all over. That’d look nice in headlines, wouldn’t it! Bride and groom not present owing to being involved in a murder inquiry. Well, I’m not doing it. But I’ll be back. And don’t leave town. I can get an order to stop you if I have to. That’d look nice in headlines too. Well, I won’t do that either—but don’t try to leave. Miss Whipple, do you have a green suit?”
    It was altogether unexpected and was exactly like a blow. Dorcas almost staggered with the impact of it. A green suit … the doorman … and Mamie had said they’d been all over the house, looking … searching for what? For a green suit? But the doorman … He’d had only a glimpse …
    Jevan was speaking. He was saying agreeably, too smoothly perhaps, “Of course she might have a green suit. Or a blue or yellow one. Why not?”
    If Wait heard Jevan there was no evidence of it, for he was looking at Dorcas. Quietly, almost as if he were thinking of something else, yet Dorcas, meeting his eyes helplessly, felt guilt in her own. In another moment he would ask her point-blank if she had been in Ronald’s apartment, or perhaps he knew already. Certainly he had questioned the servants about what she had done the previous night. Then he suspected her. Why? Definitely and specifically because he knew she had been with Ronald? Or merely in a general way because she was one of Ronald’s associates?
    His eyes were extraordinarily discerning. She was assailed by an uneasy notion that he could read her thoughts. But he said finally, rather affably: “How about it, Mrs Locke?”
    Probably, helplessly, she