Page:Miss Madelyn Mack Detective.pdf/97

"Do you want me here?" her father asked.

Madelyn had walked over to the book shelves, and was again delving into the pages of the morocco encyclopedia. "I would prefer not!" she answered without looking up.

It was well toward half-past nine (I had glanced at my watch a dozen times) when the two women in the library emerged. The form of Bertha Van Sutton was bent even more than before, and it was evident at a glance that the strain of the interview had brought her almost to the point of a collapse.

As I started forward, the light flashed for an instant on a round gleaming object in Madelyn Mack's hand. It was the small silver ball that had been found in Norris Endicott's room.

At that moment, the front bell tinkled through the house. There was a short conversation in the vestibule, and then Jenkins ushered a tall, loosely jointed figure into the hall. It was Detective Wiley of the Newark headquarters. (Of course the affair at "The Maples" had come under the jurisdiction of the New Jersey police.)

The detective's ruddy face, with its stubble of beard, was flushed with an unusual excitement, and his stiff, sandy moustache stood out in two bristling lines from his mouth. He received Madelyn's bow with a short, half contemptuous nod, as he snapped