Chapter 18By nine o’clock next morning everybody in Greenings knew that Clarice Dean had been drowned in the splash. After Dr. Croft’s housekeeper had walked along the street and spent twenty minutes in Mrs. Alexander’s shop a good many people had made up their minds that she had drowned herself for love of Edward Random. Miss Sims, it appeared, had thought she heard the telephone-bell ring last night in the doctor’s surgery.
“It would be about a quarter-past eight, and the Doctor still out, so I went down to answer it. But when I took up the receiver all I got was that Miss Dean on the line, talking to Mr. Edward Random. Ever so upset she sounded. I don’t know that I ever heard anyone worse, and her voice not a bit like her usual.... Oh, yes, it was her. The telephone is right by the sur
