The Philadelphia Murder Story by Leslie Ford Page B

abrupt shock that Mr. Toplady went completely out of my mind.
    We’d got into the crowded streetcar. When I got my balance back from the jack-rabbit start it made across 6th Street, I found myself facing right, looking down at the front of the Curtis Building. Coming down the steps was Sgt. Phineas T. Buck, and with him was a girl. That in itself was extraordinary enough, but the startling thing was that the girl was Laurel Frazier. I could have mistaken the gray Persian-lamb coat with the black velvet collar, but there was no mistaking the crown of auburn curls above it.
    In the brief glimpse I got as the car crossed the street, she was holding out her hand to him. I didn’t see any more, but that was enough. The fact that she was coming out of the building meant she had been in it, and it just wasn’t the place for Judge Whitney’s secretary to be at that time. Not, I thought, if anybody else had overheard the scene between her and Myron Kane in the Broad Street Station the afternoon before—or even if they hadn’t.
    I looked at Colonel Primrose, disturbed about him, too, as a matter of fact. He was apparently too involved in his own thoughts to have noticed. He had never been so silent and uncommunicative in all the time I’d known him, and I didn’t like the set of his jaw or the obsidian chill in his eyes as they met mine over the orange-feathered hat of the colored woman between us in the aisle. I was even a little frightened. There’s a sign up in the Curtis Building, which I saw later, that might have saved me a lot of trouble if I’d seen it then and taken it to heart. It says, “Each and every member of this staff must constantly bear in mind that conduct savoring of bullheaded obstinacy or any lack of proper consideration and politeness in dealing with each other in the conduct of this business is strictly prohibited.” But, like most people, I probably wouldn’t have realized it was I who was being bullheaded and obstinate anyway. Having been told so many times—and by Colonel Primrose himself—to keep out of other people’s affairs, I no doubt would have convinced myself that that was what I was at long last doing.
    We got off the streetcar at the corner of Rittenhouse Square and went along to Abigail Whitney’s.
    Colonel Primrose turned to me. “Tell Mrs. Whitney, when you see her, that I’d like very much to talk to her,” he said equably. “I’ll be at her brother’s next door until I hear from her. Please tell her also that I’d like to see Myron’s room.” He turned at the door. “If you can make Mrs. Whitney understand that Myron’s being a guest in her house imposes some pretty definite obligations, it would be wise to do so. Goodbye.”
    I watched the door close behind him, not entirely sure that he wasn’t saying a good deal more than was immediately apparent. He was as urbane as usual, but rather grimly so. I wondered if he thought the Whitneys were involved in either the disappearance of the manuscript or Myron’s death, whether he could hope there’d be much in the way of tangible evidence left up there by now.
    I started up the stairs. At the first mirror, I was aware that if Abigail Whitney was resting, she was doing it by her own unique method of Concentrating on Something Else. And as I rounded the head of the stairs, I could see Elsie Phelps even plainer. She was standing in the door, as irritatingly smug as before, and quite in control of the situation whatever it was or was to be.
    “Oh, Mrs. Latham,” she said, “my aunt would like to see you. We’re dreadfully sorry about all the trouble we’ve put you to.”
    I didn’t know whether she was being callously efficient or just didn’t know. She gave me the kind of smile the lady of the manor might give to a feeble-minded member of the village canning society, and stepped back for me to go in.
    Abigail Whitney was sitting up against her yellow cushions, bright-eyed and erect, alert and chipper as a sparrow.