"You, Mademoiselle, you have been the mar-velous
one. To pour away the champagne, to act
the dead body so prettily."
"Ugh," she shivered, "you
give me the creeps."
He said gently:
"It was you who telephoned me, was it not?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"I don't know. I was worried and--frightened
without knowing quite why I was frightened Bar-ton
told me he was having this party to com-memorate
Iris' death. I realized he had some
scheme on--but he wouldn't tell me what it was.
He looked so--so queer and so excited that I felt
something terrible might happen--only of course I
never dreamed that he meant to--to get rid of
me."
"And so, Mademoiselle?"
"I'd heard people talking about you. I thought
if I could only get you here perhaps it would stop
anything happening. I thought that being
foreigner--if I rang up and pretended to be in
danger and--and made it sound mysterious--"
"You thought the melodrama, it would attract
me? That is what puzzled me. The message itself
--definitely it was what you call 'bogus'--it did
not ring true. But the fear in the voice--that was.
real. Then I came--and you denied very cate-gorically
having sent me a message."