Read Online Call After Midnight by Mignon G. Eberhart - Free Book Online Page B

being with your former husband, in the dining room, when the shots were fired.”
    Jenny instantly saw the purport of his statement; the red light of danger flashed near. “Yes! It’s the truth.”
    “Thank you,” he said, gave another imperceptible signal to the young policeman and both of them walked out of the room.
    It was then broad daylight, a chilly gray day. Jenny felt as if she had run a long and exhausting race. She went to the window and saw two policemen walking slowly, scrutinizing the lawn, the rocks beyond the sea wall, everything. Clearly they were looking for a gun or for any evidence of a murderer’s escape.
    She went back and sat down on the bed; there was a great deal to think about. But the next thing she was really conscious of was that someone was leaning over her, very gently pulling a blanket over her. She half opened her eyes and saw Cal walking softly out and shutting the door.
    She couldn’t shake off the paralyzing hold of sleep. But she knew vaguely that hours had passed when she awoke because someone was knocking at the door. She said, “Come in.”
    It was a young woman, a girl really, with curly dark hair and dark eyes; she wore a blue uniform and a black sweater and carried a tray.
    “Oh!” Jenny sat up.
    “I’m Rosa.”
    “Oh,” Jenny said again blankly.
    “We work for Mr. Vleedam. Victor and me. He gave us the gardener’s cottage to live in.”
    “Oh, yes, I remember. What’s happened? Have the police found the—the murderer?”
    Rosa shook her head. “They’re still questioning everybody. They questioned me and they questioned Victor. We didn’t know a thing about it till all the police cars got here. It’s dreadful. Poor Mrs. Vleedam! Oh, Mr. Vleedam said to wake you. Captain Parenti wants to talk to you again.”
    Sleep was only a temporary escape. “What time is it?”
    “After two. Is there anything else, Miss—Mrs. Vleedam?”
    “No, thank you.” The hot coffee smelled delicious.
    Rosa pushed back a thick curl, waited a moment and then went away.
    By two-thirty Jenny had eaten, dressed and felt better for her heavy sleep. But she went down the stairs very soberly. Art Furby sat in the hall, staring thoughtfully at the floor.
    Art Furby was almost as truly an inheritance of Peter’s as the railroad or his house. Not only had his father been Peter’s father’s closest friend but there had been a time, when exactly Jenny didn’t know, during which the railroad had been in a state bordering upon bankruptcy. At that time Art’s father had stepped in, put every cent of money he could rake and scrape into the road and, Peter always said, had saved it. The money had never quite been paid back as money, but Art Furby still held a sizeable block of stock. He also held, and probably always would hold, a vice-presidency in the Sheraton Valley Railroad; he was head of the legal department, general counsel for the road. He would indeed, Jenny thought briefly, have had hurt feelings when Cal was moved up ahead of him to the presidency.
    He was older than Peter but not much, in his middle forties. He said little and what he said was conventional and predictable. He wasn’t brilliant but he had to know his job and it seemed to Jenny that as some of the hardness and responsibility of railroad management had rubbed off on Peter, so had the requirements of Art’s profession rubbed off on him. Even his gray tweed jacket and gray slacks and sleek graying hair looked discreet and composed.
    If he felt that he had never quite been granted the honor and authority which he deserved, he never showed it. If there were ever something slightly grudging, slightly critical in Art’s relation to Peter, it was so slight that Jenny was never sure it actually existed.
    He was always correct; he had no need to explain his presence to Jenny but of course he did. He rose and put out his hand. “I came as soon as I heard. How do you do, Jenny?”
    She took his hand.
    “I’m glad to see