19I soon found out why Sergeant Buck didn’t want me to bring Dorothy Hallet to the Preston Hotel. And I should have known. The reason was that it wasn’t safe. He said so himself, not being frank but just literal. If there was a slightly hollow smile on my face he ignored it—or “ignered” it rather, as he’d have said if he’d been called on to mention it at all. It served me right, of course, because I’d gone racing up there, flattered because he’d called on me. It was merely pride that deserved its fall. It did change my attitude, however. Here-after anybody could call him anything they wanted to.
The Preston Hotel was dingy and certainly not luxurious, in spite of the break the papers gave it when they got the story. Still, it was an improvement on Mrs. Kelly’s empty boarding house. Betty
