OCR Text |
Show 155 snow, or at least a lot of footprints. I'm not any great shakes as a detective, Karl, but it looks like just one set of footprints has gone inside here tonight." "It's hard to tell, Pop," Karl answered. "The falling snow might have covered up the rest, if the men came early." But to Karl, too, on the way up the drive, only one nearly filled set of footprints was visible. "Brush your coat off, son, and stamp the snow from your boots," Hugo told him at the mansion's tall carved door. "We don't want to track slush into this pretty house." It was Mary Margaret Culley who answered their knock, dressed in her black maid's clothes with a white cap and apron. "Mr. Kerner!" she exclaimed, looking surprised to see them. "Working late tonight, Mary Margaret?" Hugo asked her. "Oh no. I stay here all the time now. Didn't Jame mention it?" "He didn't. I would like to see Mr. Bonner, please." Hugo spoke courteously, and Karl surprised himself by pulling off his cap out of politeness to Mary Margaret. She seemed changed: less awkward, less stooped, not as shy. Working at the general superintendent's mansion must agree with her, Karl thought. "Mr. Bonner is in the drawing room," Mary Margaret told them. "Follow me, please." She led them along a wide hallway, its walls hung with portraits Karl recognized one of Andrew Carnegie. A curved stairway of dark, polished wood descended to the center of the hall, but Mary Margaret passed the stair and paused before an imposing double door of wood |