Lawyers -- Fiction; Love stories; Mystery and detective stories; Political corruption -- Fiction
"Some one came into my room and wakened me," I explained. "I heard a
racket and when I got up I found a shell that I had put on the door-sill
to keep the door open, in the middle of the room. I stepped on it."
He examined a piece of apple before putting it in his mouth. Then he
turned a pair of shrewd eyes on me.
"That's funny," he said. "Anything in the room disturbed?"
"Nothing."
"Where's the shell now?"
"On the mantel. I didn't want to step on it again."
He thought for a minute, but his next remark was wholly facetious.
"No. I guess you won't step on it up there. Like the old woman: she
says, 'Motorman, if I put my foot on the rail will I be electrocuted?'
And he says, 'No, madam, not unless you put your other foot on the
trolley wire.'"
I got up impatiently. There was no humor in the situation that night for
me.
"Some one had been in the room," I reiterated. "The door was closed,
although I had left it open."
He finished his apple and proceeded with great gravity to drop the
parings down the immaculate register in the floor beside his chair.
Then--
"I've only got one business here, Mr. Knox," he said in an undertone,
"and you know what that is. But if it will relieve your mind of the
thought that there was anything supernatural about your visitor, I'll
tell you that it was Mr. Wardrop, and that to the best of my belief he
was in your room, not once, but twice, in the last hour and a half. As
far as that shell goes, it was I that kicked it, having gone up without
my shoes."
I stared at him blankly.
"What could he have wanted?" I exclaimed. But with his revelation,
Davidson's interest ceased; he drew the blanket up around his shoulders
and shivered.
"Search me," he said and yawned.
I went back to bed, but not to sleep. I deliberately left the door wide
open, but no intrusion occurred. Once I got up and glanced down the
stairs. For all his apparent drowsiness, Davidson heard my cautious
movements, and saluted me in a husky whisper.
"Have you got any quinine?" he said. "I'm sneezing my head off."
But I had none. I gave him a box of cigarettes, and after partially
dressing, I threw myself across the bed to wait for daylight. I was
roused by the sun beating on my face, to hear Miss Letitia's tones from
her room across.
"Nonsense," she was saying querulously. "Don't you suppose I can smell?
Do you think because I'm a little hard of hearing that I've lost my
other senses? Somebody's been smoking."
"It's me," Heppie shouted. "I--"
"You?" Miss Letitia snarled. "What are you smoking for? That ain't my
shirt; it's my--"
"I ain't smokin'," yelled Heppie. "You won't let me tell you. I spilled
vinegar on the stove; that's what you smell."
Miss Letitia's sardonic chuckle came through the door.
"Vinegar," she said with scorn. "Next thing you'll be telling me it's
vinegar that Harry and Mr. Knox carry around in little boxes in their
pockets. You've pinned my cap to my scalp."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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