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Through the open transom above the office door came the hum of typewriters. Mark Trent, behind his desk, scowled in the direction of the sound. He had paid good money for those machines on the understanding that they were noiseless. Curious that he never had been annoyed by them before. Must be this confounded note in his hands. He read again:

Dear Mr. Trent—

Many times your aunt has told me of the Thanksgivings you spent with her at Lookout House. Won't you dine here on the coming holiday? My mother, sister and brother will be with me. There are many family treasures which you should have. I would like to go over them with you, and more than all, I want to thank you for pulling me out from under that car. I really wasn't so ungrateful as I sounded. This is a late invitation because I have been bolstering up my courage to ask you. Please come. Bury the hatchet, or accept the olive branch, or however peace between enemies—though I am not for a moment your enemy—is being accomplished now.

Sincerely yours,

Brooke Reyburn

Lookout House

He dropped the note and frowned at the red carnations in a crystal vase on his desk. He lived over the instant he had seen a girl go down in the street, had seen a speeding car almost upon her. How had he managed to save her? Colorless and dazed as she was, he had thought her the loveliest thing he ever had seen as she looked up at him. As for a second he had steadied her in his arms, his brain had fought against her attraction and the live warmth of her body had prompted him to growl at her. No wonder she had been angry, and no wonder—he admitted honestly—Mary Amanda Dane had been taken in by her. Well, one victim in the family was enough. She shouldn't hypnotize him.

He drew letter paper toward him and picked up a pen. He'd settle this question of friendship between them for good and all. Little schemer! Now that she had the property she wanted to appear friendly with him. Probably thought it would help her socially in the community in which she had taken up her residence. If what he had heard was true, the conservative old-timers there had held an indignation meeting, and because he had been cut out of the property, had turned thumbs down on the legatee. They would freeze her out, and they could do it, he had seen the method applied to one girl. It must not be done. If only Aunt Mary Amanda's old friend Anne Gregory were on this side of the water, he would appeal to her to be decent to Brooke Reyburn. The Empress, as her friends called her, was the social arbiter of the community. Meanwhile the invitation must be answered.

Dear Miss Reyburn, he wrote.

As he hesitated as to how to word his regrets, another picture of the girl as she had appeared between the hangings in Stewart's office flashed in his mind with startling clarity. Brown eyes blazing with amber lights, lovely scornful mouth, glints of gold in the copper bronze of her hair, red spots which were not rouge in her cheeks, and her slender body rigid with rage. He seemed destined to make her angry. Had her pose been acting? Her brother was on the stage. Why be unjust? She wouldn't have been human had she not been furious. Hadn't she heard him refuse to marry her?

He must get along with that note. His frowning regard of the opening door changed to a welcoming smile as a head poked in.

"Come in, Jed. What's on the little mind now?"

Jed Stewart perched on a corner of the flat desk. He pulled one of the red carnations from the vase and drew the stem through the buttonhole of the lapel of his checked coat.

"I'm taking a lady to tea, need a posy to make me look like a million, so combined utility with business and came here. Knew you always had them."

"What's the business? If you've been sent again to ask me to take half of that—"

"Hold everything; that's all washed up. The matter has not been mentioned to me since the day you and Brooke Reyburn met in my office. I guess you killed her interest in you by your infernal sarcasm:

"'Hope you'll enjoy the house and fortune, Miss Reyburn. Happy landings! Perhaps I'd better say, safe landings,' sez you."

"Oh, you think so? Read that."

Jed Stewart frowned over the note Mark Trent tossed to him. He read it through, reread it. Looked at his friend.

"Going?"

"Going! What do you think?" Mark answered a buzzer. "Who? Mrs. Gregory. Of course I'll see her."

He explained hurriedly to Stewart. "It's an old friend of Aunt Mary Amanda's. She sailed for France a week before my aunt died. She's a martinet, one of those terrible women who don't care where the lash of their tongue falls, and a confirmed matchmaker. They call her The Empress. I always got on with her, though she resented it because I did not marry a girl she had picked out for me. Don't go, Jed. I've been wishing I could see her. I hear that the social registerites are planning to freeze out—

"This is mighty good of you, Mrs. Gregory, and it's a clear case of thought transference; not ten minutes ago I was thinking of you."

A wave of feeling menaced the clarity of Mark's voice as he bent over the white-gloved hand of the woman who had entered the office. She had been a vital part of the life at Lookout House which now seemed so irretrievably far behind him. A smile tugged at his lips as he observed that the floppy wide-brimmed picture hat was the model she had worn since as a boy he had admired the deeply waved blonde hair it shadowed. The hair was still faultlessly marcelled, but it was snow white. He thought now, as he had thought then, that the large hat needed only streamers to make it go Bo-Peep, and that if her tall ebony cane had a crook, it would be the last perfect touch. In spite of changes the years had wrought in her, there was still a hint of exceptional charm.

She settled into a chair with the same rustle of taffeta he remembered, and adjusted a diamond brooch of a size and brilliance to make a discriminating thief avidly flex supple fingers. She peered up at him through a jeweled lorgnette, with eyes once a brilliant blue, now the color of faded larkspur.

"Handsome as ever, aren't you, Mark, in spite of the way those two women let you down. First that wife, with a grande amoureuse complex, and then Mary Amanda. I don't wonder that your hair at the temples looks as if it had been touched by frosty fingers, if you are only thirty. Who's he?"

She waved her lorgnette toward Stewart, who, back to the room, apparently had been absorbed in a study of the calf-bound books on the shelf.

"Stewart, of the firm of Stewart and Stewart, attorneys. Jed, come here. I want to present you to Mrs. Gregory, my first love."

"Hmp! Flatterer! You always could coax my heart out of my breast with your wonderful smile and your voice, Mark. They haven't changed. Whenever I see you I want to hit the ceiling because you won't represent our district in the Great and General Court." She peered through her lorgnette as Jed Stewart took the hand she extended with the air of a sovereign.

"Stewart and Stewart! You were Mary Amanda Dane's lawyer, weren't you?"

The contempt in her voice deepened the color of Jed Stewart's already sufficiently ruddy face.

"I had that honor."

"Honor! Do you call it an honor to help cheat her nephew out of his inheritance?"

"Really, Mrs. Gregory, Jed can't be held responsible—"

"Hold your tongue, Mark. I've started, and now I intend to get rid of a few things that have been boiling and sizzling inside me since the day I heard that Mary Amanda had cut you out in favor of that fashion adviser she'd gone crazy about. When they heard of her will, I'll wager my step-daughters hugged themselves to think that their father left his money in a trust fund which I couldn't will away if I happened to have a brain storm."

The shortness of her breath, the feverish light in her eyes, the spots on her cheeks which glowed like red traffic lights frightened Mark. He had been half angry, half amused at her outburst at first, but people had suffered strokes under less excitement. He said soothingly:

"Forget it, Mrs. Gregory. I don't need the money—"

"Of course you need it. No one has money enough now because no one has a sense of financial security. Didn't you take over all the lame ducks as your share of your grandfather's property so that your aunt wouldn't be worried by them? Aren't you making that ex-wife of yours an allowance? Mary Amanda told me. What's she been doing since she left you for that French Count? It was a French Count year, wasn't it? They were buzzing round rich girls thick as wasps about a broiled live lobster."

"She has married, I understand."

"Married! After she divorced the Count! The third time! Getting to be a habit, isn't it? She isn't entitled to a penny. I don't wonder your aunt was furious when she found out that you were giving her money. Perhaps that's the real reason she cut you off, though I thought it was because she didn't believe in divorce; on that subject she was stuck back in the eighties. However, that wasn't what I came here to talk about. I just wanted to tell you that if I had known what was in that will I witnessed two days before I sailed for Europe—it was just a week before she died—now, Stewart, don't look at me with your jaw dropped as if I were a moron with a Medusa complex—of course, I know that a person isn't supposed to know the contents of the will she witnesses, but I still say that had I known that your aunt was leaving her money away from you, Mark, I would have cut off my hand before I signed."

Mark Trent's heart stopped and galloped furiously on. A will witnessed a week before Mary Amanda's death! The will which had been probated was of a date two months prior. As he opened suddenly stiffened lips to reply, he met Jed Stewart's warning eyes, eyes which seemed like flames in a chalky face. Jed was as amazed as he.

In the second of silence which followed Mrs. Gregory's angry declaration, Mark wondered if he were in a dream. He listened. Typewriters were purring in the outer office; a whistle, shrill but faint, rose from the street, the traffic cop was on his job; a plane roared overhead; the four lights in the room, the spicy scent of red carnations were real. He was awake.

Jed Stewart stepped hard on his foot as he passed to offer a cigarette to the woman in the chair. She sniffed.

"You ought to know by looking at me, young man, that I wouldn't take one of those. Lawyers aren't as bright as they used to be. Oh, go on, smoke, you needn't ask my permission, that courtesy went out when the speakeasy era came in, though judging by the shakiness of your hand, Stewart, I'd suggest that you cut out tobacco for a while."

Mark looked at Jed Stewart. Jed shaky. It was incredible. He watched as his friend flung down the cigarette, perched on the arm of a chair, and clasped his hands hard about one knee.

"You're right, madam, I am smoking too much, but I was lighting that one to steady my nerves. I was fond of my client Mrs. Dane, and your reference to her last will brought back a picture of the delicate woman in her wheel chair with—"

"With that disreputable parrot swearing in the cage behind her. The bird was there when I witnessed the will; I didn't know but that she would insist upon Micawber's being the other witness, but she called in Clotilde and Henri Jacques, it was her nurse-companion's day off. If I had to choose between the parrot and that French butler as my co-resident on a desert island, I'd take Mr. Micawber. After they went out, Mary Amanda and I were alone for a few moments in the firelight. It was the last time I saw her—" Mrs. Gregory dabbed her reddening eyes with a lace-edged handkerchief.

"I'm traveling fast, Mark. You are too young to know that tightening of the heart as one by one friends vanish into the haze ahead; I'm getting used, though not resigned, to picking up the paper and seeing that someone with whom I had played cards, perhaps the day before, had been paged, had been touched on the shoulder with that mysterious summons:

"'Wanted on long distance, madam.'

"Perhaps the increasing number of empty chairs in one's friendship circle make it easier to leave one's own."

She straightened, demanded angrily:

"Why am I slobbering like that? I love life! I wouldn't give up my place in this problem-logged world for all the starry halos and golden harps you could offer. Thinking of your aunt set me off. The last few times I saw her I had noticed that she seemed distrait, as if something were worrying her. I've wondered since if she would have told me what she had done if I had not had to hurry away. I called Henri before I left. As I looked back, she seemed white and exhausted. As I drove away I saw that girl driving in."

"That girl! You mean—"

"The Reyburn girl, of course, Stewart. You ought to get a position somewhere as an echo. I'd met her several times and I liked her too before I knew what she had done to Mark. She made me forget that I was old enough to be her grandmother. Charming manners. Well, I must run along. I'm looking in at three debutante teas—mothers have waked up to the fact that it's advisable to invite older guests as well as younger. I had to come, Mark, and tell you that I was sorry for my share in that unjust will. I always liked you."

"Thank you for your interest in me, Mrs. Gregory. I'm going down to your car with you. Wait for me, Jed."

The woman turned on the threshold. "I hope, if ever you draw another will cutting out a rightful heir, young man, you'll be swished in boiling oil."

Stewart grinned. "Not boiling oil, madam, not boiling; couldn't you reduce the temperature a degree?"

She smiled. "We'll see, we'll see. You're an engaging boy, if you are a poor lawyer. I'm to spend the winter in my country house—not far from the Dane-Trent property—everybody's doing it this year. Motor down some Sunday for lunch. I like men. I grew up with three brothers, had two husbands and a son. They're all gone. I'm sick of seeing nothing but women. When I get too old to live alone I'll apply for admittance to a home for nice old gentlemen—and not too old at that. Don't forget to come to lunch, Stewart."

"Sure, I'll come. Meanwhile, would you mind not telling anyone that you witnessed Mrs. Dane's will?"

"You don't think I'm proud of my part in that robbery, do you? I wouldn't have mentioned it now, but I wanted to square myself with Mark."

Mark Trent's mind was in a tumult as he chatted with her in the corridor, inquired for her health on the way down in the elevator, told her that he thought of her rich fruit cake whenever he attended a wedding. She looked up at him sharply as they waited at the curb.

"Then you still attend weddings?"

"Why not? I rather like them."

"After your experience, I should think you would shun them. Ever see Lola?"

"No."

"Here's my car. That's Dominique at the wheel. Remember him, don't you? He drove my horses before I had an automobile, and the only thing I have against him is that he recommended his friends the Jacques to your aunt. She made so much of Henri that he got dictator-minded and tried to run the whole place. When God wants to destroy a fool He gives him power. It will be interesting to watch the man. He'll crack up some way. I hear Miss Reyburn has kept him and his wife as servants. Bring that Stewart man with you some Sunday. I like him. Good-bye. Don't hold my signature against me."

Mark Trent stood looking after the limousine as it shot into the line of traffic. Why did she question him about the woman who had been his wife? Had been. Why couldn't he think in the past tense always and not feel bound by that, "Whom God hath joined together let no man put asunder"?

Why spend a moment on the past, with Mrs. Gregory's startling revelation to be confronted that his aunt had made a later will than the one which had been probated?

Jed Stewart was walking the floor when he entered his office. He stopped abruptly.

"Well," he demanded, "did she talk any more?"

"Not about the will. Why the dickens didn't you ask questions?"

"Didn't dare. Don't you see, Mark? Boy, don't you understand? Someone has snitched that second will she witnessed."

"Did you draw it?"

"Never heard of it. Perhaps your aunt had an acute attack of remorse. I argued with her, as much as a lawyer can argue, against cutting you out; she wouldn't come to me about a new will. Didn't Mrs. Gregory say that she had been distrait the last few times they had been together? She thinks it was because Mrs. Dane was making up her mind to disinherit you; you and I know that the will to that effect already had been drawn."

"You passed up a grand chance to cross-examine her, Jed."

"Didn't dare. She thinks the will she witnessed is the one probated; doesn't know that if it had been she would have been summoned to prove her signature. We mustn't let a suspicion of this second will get out. Where is it?"

"She said the Reyburn girl drove in as she left the place. Do you suppose Aunt Mary Amanda told her what was in it and that she—"

Jed Stewart stopped his restless pacing. His eyes and voice were troubled.

"Destroyed it? But how could Brooke Reyburn have known what was in the first will? Perhaps your aunt had told her that she was to be residuary legatee—it doesn't seem probable, but women do fool things." He grinned. "Of course men never do. We've got to get busy. If it isn't destroyed, that will may be at Lookout House; you've never liked the Jacques and you say that they hate you. I have an idea. Open your house. Live there. Get friendly with the girl."

"I would feel like a sneak to go there to spy on her."

"You suspect that she may have influenced your aunt to make a will in her favor, don't you?"

"I do."

"Then give her a chance to prove that she didn't. Take a couple of Japs and go down and live next door."

"I won't commit myself to that proposition in a hurry. If I decide to do it, will you come with me?"

"Sure, I've been hoping you'd ask me. Philo Vance is my middle name." Stewart picked up the note lying on the desk. "You'd better open the investigation by accepting this."

"The Reyburn girl's invitation to dine on Thanksgiving Day? I would feel like a spy, a traitor. The turkey would choke me."

"Do you want the truth about this will?"

"You bet I do."

"Then go. Don't write. 'We never send a letter when we can send a man.' Phone the night before that you are coming. She'll have less time in which to think why you are accepting."