The egg-nog was finished. Drop by drop the liquor had cooked the egg,
and now, with a final whisk, a last toss in the shaker, it was ready, a
symphony in gold and white. The doctor sniffed it.
"Real eggs, real milk, and a touch of real Kentucky whisky," he said.
He insisted on carrying it up himself, but at the foot of the stairs he
paused.
"Riggs said the plans were drawn for the house," he said, harking back
to the old subject. "Drawn by Huston in town. So I naturally believed
him."
When the doctor came down, I was ready with a question.
"Doctor," I asked, "is there any one in the neighborhood named
Carrington? Nina Carrington?"
"Carrington?" He wrinkled his forehead. "Carrington? No, I don't
remember any such family. There used to be Covingtons down the creek."
"The name was Carrington," I said, and the subject lapsed.
Gertrude and Halsey went for a long walk that afternoon, and Louise
slept. Time hung heavy on my hands, and I did as I had fallen into a
habit of doing lately--I sat down and thought things over. One result
of my meditations was that I got up suddenly and went to the telephone.
I had taken the most intense dislike to this Doctor Walker, whom I had
never seen, and who was being talked of in the countryside as the
fiance of Louise Armstrong.
I knew Sam Huston well. There had been a time, when Sam was a good
deal younger than he is now, before he had married Anne Endicott, when
I knew him even better. So now I felt no hesitation in calling him
over the telephone. But when his office boy had given way to his
confidential clerk, and that functionary had condescended to connect
his employer's desk telephone, I was somewhat at a loss as to how to
begin.
"Why, how are you, Rachel?" Sam said sonorously. "Going to build that
house at Rock View?" It was a twenty-year-old joke of his.
"Sometime, perhaps," I said. "Just now I want to ask you a question
about something which is none of my business."
"I see you haven't changed an iota in a quarter of a century, Rachel."
This was intended to be another jest. "Ask ahead: everything but my
domestic affairs is at your service."
"Try to be serious," I said. "And tell me this: has your firm made any
plans for a house recently, for a Doctor Walker, at Casanova?"
"Yes, we have."
"Where was it to be built? I have a reason for asking."
"It was to be, I believe, on the Armstrong place. Mr. Armstrong
himself consulted me, and the inference was--in fact, I am quite
certain--the house was to be occupied by Mr. Armstrong's daughter, who
was engaged to marry Doctor Walker."