CHAPTER 19He said to the girl: “Shouldn’t you go back to Tommy and tell him where we are?”
“Go back? Leave this?” she asked. “I’ve never lived a step or a word or a thought before in my whole life! Leave this? I can’t leave it! Tell me what you think. Van Zandt—who is Van Zandt?”
“Valdez, probably,” replied Culver.
“And the dead man?”
“That has to be your uncle, I suppose.”
Something took the place of the excitement in her eyes.
“He was a queer, jolly, happy man,” she said. “And everyone always was afraid that he would come home drunk. But he’s dead; and he was my uncle!”
“Interesting,” said Culver. “Presently you will reason yourself into a state of grief because of a stranger.”
“Please don’t!” she said, angered a little.
“I beg your pardon,” said Culver. “I merely was noticing t
