Page:Miss Madelyn Mack Detective.pdf/139

distance between her and our host when he spun about with a cry of discovery. She paused with a long breath.

"Thank you, Senator. What first attracted your attention to me?"

"The rustle of your dress, of course!"

Madelyn turned to me with the first smile of satisfaction I had seen since we entered the Duffield gate.

"Was the same true in your case, Nora?"

I nodded. "The fact that you are a woman hopelessly betrayed you. If you had not been hampered by petticoats—"

Madelyn broke in upon my sentence with that peculiar freedom which she always reserves to herself. "There are two things I would like to ask of you, Senator, if I may."

"I am at your disposal, I assure you."

"I would like to borrow a Boston directory, and the services of a messenger."

We walked slowly up the driveway, Madelyn again relapsing into her preoccupied silence and Senator Duffield making no effort to induce her to speak.

We had nearly reached the veranda when there was the sound of a motor at the gate, and a red