Mason North nipped at his mustache reflectively and turned to the younger man. "Winthrop, I wish you'd go and attend to that Erskine matter for me!"
Winnie departed in obvious reluctance and only when the door had closed behind him did his father resume:
"In what capacity are you employed by Miss Murdaugh?"
"Confidential agent, she said I was to tell you." Dan could scarcely suppress a grin of importance. "She told me to remind you that she asked you particular last night if she might send for the copies of the papers, not call for them herself, and you said 'yes.' And you'll excuse me, Sir, but I'm not to answer any more questions."
The attorney shrugged and turned to the telephone, but Dan interposed quietly:
"Miss Murdaugh ain't at home, Sir. She's waiting for me and she says she'll not set foot in the house until I bring her the copies of the papers."
"Very well." Mason North capitulated, and, opening a drawer in his desk, handed over a rolled package. "Here you are. I shall want a receipt, of course."
He made out one, which Dan signed, and with a nod turned to leave, when the attorney halted him on the threshold.
"Ask Miss Murdaugh if she can find it convenient to call here this afternoon; tell her I would like to talk things over with her and will expect her between four and five o'clock."
Dan departed, colliding violently as he did so with an elderly gentleman who entered the inner office and banged the door behind him.
"Mason, have you heard from her? Do you know where she has gone?"
"Who?" North rose hurriedly. "What is it, Ripley? What has happened?"
"Willa. She's gone!" Ripley Halstead dropped despondently into a chair beside the desk. "Here's the note the poor, proud little thing left behind her. Mason, I feel as if, between us, we've given her a beastly, rotten deal."
But the attorney did not heed the final observation. He pressed the button in his desk excitedly and when a wondering clerk appeared he barked:
"That young man who just went out of here! Follow him, stop him!"
"Too late, Sir. He went down in the express elevator as I stepped out of the local."
North seated himself again with a gesture of hopelessness.
"All right; never mind, then. Ripley----" as the door closed once more--"if you'd been five minutes sooner I could have located her. Why under the sun didn't you telephone me?"