Her eyes closed. She leaned back in her chair. The full meaning of the
head-line, its terrific import, seeped slowly into her consciousness.
She knew that any scandal involving a woman is, from a newspaper
standpoint, worth treble one without her. One needs to be no analyst to
discover this--the fact presents itself too patently in every page of
every newspaper. She knew, too, that newspapers relinquish spicy stories
regretfully.
Her eyes opened slowly. It was with a physical effort that she lifted
the paper in order that she might read. The story was brief. It merely
stated that the _Courier_ had learned, through authentic sources, that
the district attorney's office suspected that a woman had killed Beiner,
and that it was running down the clues that had aroused its suspicions.
But it was a bold-face paragraph, set to the left of the main article,
that drove the color from her cheeks. It was an editorial, transplanted,
for greater effect, to the first page. Clancy read it through.