Maurice Trask, shrewd and calculating, sized her up, as he would have expressed it.
And his sizing up was decidedly complimentary. So much so, in fact, that he almost concluded to take her part against all comers.
“I’m for her,” he said to himself, “and yet,” he added, to the same confidant, “she’s nobody’s fool! That girl knows what she’s about—and by jingo, if she wanted to kill a man, she could kill him! I’ll say she could!”
It was Miss Austin’s dress that caught every one’s eye. Not a person present, among the visitors, but wanted to say, “turn around—oh, do!”
But the girl sank into a low chair beside Saltonstall Adams and quietly awaited developments.
“May I present Mr. Trask,” Cray said, a little awkwardly, for it was not easy to be casual under the glance of those pathetic eyes.
Anita bowed courteously if coldly, and then there was an embarrassing silence.
“Well,” Trask remarked, at last, “you people are not very talkative, guess I’ll take the helm myself. Miss Austin, will you be good enough to get up and turn around?”
The request was so simply made, that, almost without thinking of its strangeness, Anita did exactly as she was asked.
Sure enough, there were two rows of buttons down the back of her bodice, and another row across the sailor collar.
At a nod from Trask she sat down again, and then the storm broke.
“I told you so!” cried Helen Peyton. “That’s the very dress that made the marks on that chair back! Dare you deny, Miss Austin, that you were in Doctor Waring’s study that night he died?”
The dark eyes of Miss Mystery opened wide in horror. She seemed fairly paralyzed with fright, and glanced wildly from one face to another.
Maurice Trask’s showed only frank admiration. He looked at the girl as if he had never before seen any one so attractive.
Gordon Lockwood’s face betrayed no emotion of any sort. Had he been indifferent to Miss Mystery instead of loving her, as he did, he could have shown no less expressive countenance.
And all the others present showed definite and decided suspicion, scorn and hatred.
Except one. Old Salt looked kindly at the agitated girl. He even held out a protective hand, and with a gentle inflection, said:
“Tell the truth, dear child. _Did_ you know Doctor Waring?”