"Her. The young lady. Sure! She's lookin' fer you over in the
waitin'-room. You mus' 'a' missed her when she got off--thought she
wasn't comin' up till to-morrer. Mus' 'a' changed her mind. That's
a woming all over, ain't it?"
Rossiter felt himself turn hot and cold. His head began to whirl and his
courage went fluttering away. Here was a queer complication. The quarry
hunting for the sleuth, instead of the reverse. He fanned himself with his
hat for one brief, uncertain moment, dazed beyond belief. Then he
resolutely strode over to face the situation, trusting to luck to keep him
from blundering his game into her hands. Just as he was about to put his
foot upon the lamp-lit door-sill the solution struck him like a blow. She
was expecting Havens to meet her!
There was but one woman in the room, and she was approaching the door
with evident impatience as he entered. Both stopped short, she with a look
of surprise, which changed to annoyance and then crept into an nervous,
apologetic little smile; he with an unsuppressed ejaculation. She wore a
gray skirt, a white waist, and a sailor hat, and she was surpassingly good
to look at even in the trying light from the overhead lamp. Instinctively
his eye swept over her. She carried on her arm the light gray jacket, and
in one hand was the tightly rolled parasol of--he impertinently craned his
neck to see--of purple! Mr. Rossiter was face to face with the woman he
was to dog for a month, and he was flabbergasted. Even as he stopped,
puzzled, before her, contemplating retreat, she spoke to him.
"Did that man send you to me?" she asked nervously, looking through the
door beyond and then through a window at his right, quite puzzled, he
could see.
"He did, and I was sure he was mistaken. I knew of no one in this
God-forsaken place who could be asking for me," said he, collecting his
wits carefully and herding them into that one sentence. "But perhaps I
can help you. Will you tell me whom I am to look for?"
"It is strange he is not here," she said a little breathlessly. "I wired
him just what train to expect me on."
"Your husband?" ventured he admirably.
"Oh, dear, no!" said she quickly.
"I wish she'd wired me what train to expect her on," thought he grimly.
"She doesn't know me. That's good. She was expecting Havens and he's
missed connections somehow," shot rapidly through his brain. At the same
time he was thinking of her as the prettiest woman he had seen in all his
life. Then aloud: "I'll look on the platform. Maybe he's lost in this
great city. What name shall I call out?"
"Please don't call very loudly. You'll wake the dead," she said, with a
pathetic smile. "It's awfully good of you. He may come at any minute, you
know. His name is--is"--she hesitated for a second, and then went on
determinedly--"Dudley. Tall, dark man. I don't know how I shall thank you.
It's so very awkward."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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