Detective and mystery stories; Love stories; Social secretaries -- Fiction; Young women -- Fiction
He turned on his heel, ran down the steps and over the grass, clearing
the terrace wall with a leap. I looked after him, fading into the early
night, disturbed and with a sort of cold heaviness in my heart. He was
no fool—suppose what he thought was true? Suppose that dear child whom
I’d grown to love—but, rubbish! I wouldn’t think of it. It was easy to
account for the way he felt. Every little movement has a meaning of its
own—and the meaning in all his little movements was love. He had it bad,
poor chap, out on him like the measles, and while you have to be gentle
with the sick you don’t pay much attention to what they say.
That was a dreary evening. There being no one but me around they served
my dinner in the dining room, and it added to the strain. Some of the
food I didn’t know whether to eat with a fork or a spoon, so I had to
pass up a lot which was hard seeing I was hungry. But when you’re born
in an east side tenement you feel touchy that way—I wasn’t going to be
criticized by two corn-fed menials. I’m glad I’m not rich; it’s grand
all right, but it isn’t comfortable.
The next day—Saturday—it rained and I sat round in the hall and my room
where I could hear the ’phone and keep an eye on Miss Maitland. All she
did was to go for a walk, and in the afternoon stay in her study. We saw
each other at meals, our conversation specially edited for Dixon and
Isaac.
Sunday was fine weather again and Ferguson came round at twelve. Miss
Maitland had gone for another walk and he and I had the hall to
ourselves. He’d been in town the day before, seen George Whitney and
told him what he thought. When I asked how Mr. George took it, he gave a
sarcastic smile and said, "He listened very politely but didn’t seem
much impressed." He also told me they’d hoped to find the child Friday
night in the room at 76 Gayle Street and had been disappointed.
"Of course she wasn’t there," and he ended with "it was only wasting
valuable time, but there’s a proverb about none being so blind as those
who won’t see."
After that he dropped the subject—I think he wanted to get away from
it—and pow-wowing together we worked around to the robbery, which had
been side-tracked by the bigger matter. He said it had been in his mind
to tell me a curious circumstance that he’d come on the night the jewels
were taken and that he thought might be helpful to me. It was about a
cigar band that Miss Maitland had found in the woods that evening when
he and she had walked home together. Before he was half through I was
listening attentive as a cat at a mouse hole, for it was a queer story
and had possibilities. After I put some questions and had it all clear,
we mulled it over—the way I love to do.
"A man dropped it," I said slowly, my thoughts chasing ahead of my
words, "who went through the woods after the storm."
"Exactly—between eight-thirty and ten-thirty. And do you grasp the fact
that those were the hours the house was vacated—the logical time to rob
it?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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