IX
The attorney sprang up from his desk as soon as his stenographer admitted me. His face was leaner and grayer than ever; its lines had deepened, and there was a hollowness around his eyes.
“You’ve got to do something!” he cried huskily. “I have just come from the hospital. Mrs. Estep is on the point of death! A day more of this—two days at the most—and she will—”
I interrupted him, and swiftly gave him an account of the day’s happenings, and what I expected, or hoped, to make out of them. But he received the news without brightening, and shook his head hopelessly.
“But don’t you see,” he exclaimed when I had finished, “that that won’t do? I know you can find proof of her innocence in time. I’m not complaining—you’ve done all that could be expected, and more! But all that’s no good! I’ve got to have—well—a miracle, perhaps.
“Suppose that you do finally get the truth out of Ledwich and the first Mrs. Estep or it comes out during their trials for Boyd’s murder? Or that you even get to the bottom of the matter in three or four days? That will be too late! If I can go to Mrs. Estep and tell her she’s free now, she may pull herself together, and come through. But another day of imprisonment—two days, or perhaps even two hours—and she won’t need anybody to clear her. Death will have done it! I tell you, she’s—”
I left Vance Richmond abruptly again. This lawyer was bound upon getting me worked up; and I like my jobs to be simply jobs—emotions are nuisances during business hours.