CHAPTER XII
BILLY MAKES A CALL
Josie told not a soul of her experience on her first night spent in the Higgledy-Piggledy Shop. She felt as though perhaps she should have taken Chief Lonsdale into her confidence, but on the other hand was so afraid a mere man might bungle the thing. Besides she felt a pardonable pride in the possibility of being the one to solve a mystery that had been puzzling the wise heads of the secret service for some time. Thefts were constantly being reported from wealthy persons, high in the social world, from every city in the union. All kinds of household goods would disappear most mysteriously, pictures, bric-a-brac, rugs, books; sometimes even furniture heavy enough to take two strong men to move, would be spirited away in a style uncanny to say the least. Unsuspecting people would lock their apartments and go off for a pleasant week-end in the country, perhaps leave servants in charge, and come home to rooms bereft of all valuables. The thieves always showed excellent taste and never stole anything but the best. Similar losses were reported from East and West, North and South.
Of course our little detective had many misgivings on the subject of the intimacy between her dear Mary Louise and the Markles, which seemed to be growing closer and warmer as the days went on.
“I am as sure as sure can be of their perfidy. I certainly did not go to sleep under the bed and dream that they came in and did and said what they did, but I must bide my time or they will get off without my proving anything of importance on them,” she would say to herself when she saw Hortense with her arm around Mary Louise, making a great show of affection.
Hortense Markle knew very well how to make herself both agreeable and useful. She would spend hours playing chess with Colonel Hathaway or she would go to the greatest trouble to match some bit of lace for Mary Louise. She spent much of her time engaged in matchless needlework for the prospective bride. She was so pleasant, so agreeable and so very pretty that one could not help liking her. Most of Mary Louise’s friends found her quite as charming as Mary Louise did. Irene MacFarlane was the only one who did not succumb to her fascination.
Poor Irene! She had many a struggle with herself on the subject of Hortense Markle. She felt that her dislike was unreasonable and endeavored in every way to hide it, but she was of such a truthful nature that it was impossible for her to dissemble. In the meantime preparations for the wedding were under way and all of the group of girls chosen to be bridesmaids were busy over their frocks. Irene was willing to assist in any way, but Mrs. Markle was the one whose help was oftener asked.
“It is not that I am jealous,” Irene would say to herself. “It can’t be that. I have never been jealous in my life. I have an instinct of distrust that I can’t overcome. Her husband affects me the same way. What am I that I should set myself up as a person whose instinct is of any value? They must be all that they seem or so many persons would not be attracted by them.”
She rather hoped Josie O’Gorman would feel like discussing the matter with her after their little talk concerning Hortense Markle on the day the Higgledy-Piggledy Shop had its house warming, but the astute Josie did not mention it again and Irene felt that she must not be the one to approach the subject.
The Higgledy-Piggledy Shop was getting on its feet in great shape. It was a novelty in Dorfield and found its customers because of its unusualness at first and then those customers returned because of the efficiency of the young shopkeepers. Elizabeth Wright was kept quite busy hunting up facts for students on many and various subjects. She had typing to do and even obituary notices to write and sometimes love letters to compose for bashful young men and maidens. It was her lot to write club papers on every subject from Shakespeare to the musical glasses.
Josie had felt it necessary to take Elizabeth into her confidence concerning her being connected with the secret service, but never once had she divulged her suspicions of the attractive Markles. The one little talk she had had with Irene was the only time she had let herself go in the least concerning those persons whom she hoped to catch up with in some of their supposed villainies. Elizabeth was as enthusiastic about the beautiful Hortense as were all of the young people of her set, in spite of the fact that her sisters and mother declared the young married woman had an inclination to monopolize the eligible young men of their acquaintance. Billy McGraw certainly was very attentive to her, although his liking for Elizabeth was growing day by day.
“She’s such a good fellow,” he would say to himself, never thinking of her as anything but a pal, however, while he spent many a wakeful night tormented by the thought of Hortense Markle, for whom he had a chivalrous pity because of being married to such an unsympathetic middle-aged man. Many were the calls he made at the Markles’ charming apartment, when Mr. Markle would make himself obligingly scarce and leave the young man to delightful tête-a-têtes with his charming young wife.
“You promised to let me see the orchid pin when I came to see you,” he remarked on his first call, which was on the very next evening after the luncheon at the Higgledy-Piggledy.
“Why, of course,” she responded readily. “But I am so sorry it is not here. The catch was a little weak and Felix took it yesterday afternoon to the jewelers to have it strengthened. I would not lose it for worlds with all of its tender associations. I know you think I am sentimental.”
“Not at all! That is just the way Vi Thomas felt about hers, the one that was a counterpart of yours. By the way, I heard from Jerald Thomas only yesterday afternoon. It was something of a coincidence that we should have been talking about him at luncheon. I have not heard from him for ages. He tells me that he and Vi went off to Atlantic City several months ago for a breathing spell, leaving their apartment in charge of a trusted butler. They had wonderful furnishings, rugs, etchings and so forth. When they came back their place was cleared of everything in the least valuable. The butler had gone out to dinner with some friend he had picked up and had been drugged and not able to get back to his place, and while he was sleeping off his drunk, thieves had simply lifted the whole blooming business. Vi’s jewels had been taken from the safe too. I don’t know whether they got her orchid pin or not.”
“How terrible!” cried Hortense. “I can’t think of a greater calamity than losing my precious household goods, things that Felix and I have so carefully selected and for which we’ve denied ourselves so much.”
“You have some fine etchings too, have you not? I don’t know much about etchings, but I like them a lot.”
“Yes, but don’t look at them now. Felix adores showing them to people and he knows all about them. The next time you come he will take great pleasure in showing them to you. Just talk to me now.”
“Sure!” said Billy quite flattered that such a beautiful lady cared to talk to him. “Jerry and Vi Thomas were quite keen on etchings too. They had some rare signed proof ones, and Jerry was very particular about the frames too. He had some wonderful ebony frames made that were almost as valuable as the etchings.”
“How lovely they must have been,” said Hortense. “Let’s go out on the balcony. It seems warm in here to me.”
“Why not come for a spin in my car? It’s parked around the corner.”
“All right! You go and get it and I’ll be down directly.”
She ushered her caller out and ran back to a small den in the rear of the apartment where her husband was busily engaged trying to find the key to Detective O’Gorman’s cryptic code.
“I’m going out for a ride with Mr. McGraw. While I am gone, for goodness’ sake take down from the walls those signed Rembrandts and Whistlers, the ones in the ebony frames, and put something else in their places. This callow youth, Billy McGraw, is a great friend of the Thomases and has a liking for etchings.”
“Good girl! You didn’t let him see them!”
“Not I! I had to make him look at me instead.”
He pinched her cheek affectionately and looked at her with admiration shining in his eyes.
“Please get the mark off the orchid pin soon, dear, as I need it sorely for my new dress.”
“I’ll do it this afternoon,” he promised. “I guess this code can keep. It is deucedly hard. I may have to get you to help me. You are a clever pet and can jump at a conclusion it takes a clumsy man days to reach.”
Hortense smiled happily. “There is one thing I don’t like about this business, Felix.”
“And what is that?”
“I don’t like this thing of having to pretend to these foolish youths that you are a stern middle-aged person who is not in the least en rapport with me. You are so much more wonderful than any man I ever see anywhere.”
“Well, pet, we trust each other—eh?” and he looked searchingly in her eyes.
“Oh, Felix, what a question!” and she kissed him lightly on his smooth, iron-grey hair and ran off for her ride with Billy McGraw.
CHAPTER XIII
BUSINESS COMING ON
True to his determination to let no wish of Mary Louise’s go unfulfilled, Danny Dexter rigged up an elevator to the Higgledy-Piggledy Shop, so that Irene MacFarlane could go there at any time without waiting for Bob Dulaney or Danny to carry her upstairs. In days gone by there had been a dumb-waiter in the back of the old building but it had long since been abandoned because of its rusty pulleys and broken cords. This dumb-waiter shaft had been used by the shifting tenants as a receptacle for all kinds of debris. In cleaning it out before he could find room to rig up the little elevator, Danny declared there was nothing he didn’t find from broken baby carriages to old sets of false teeth. The only drawback to the elevator was that one must enter by way of the alley, but Irene insisted that made no difference whatsoever. Sometimes she came to the shop, which was not far from her home, propelling herself in her wheelchair. She would roll up the alley, which was fortunately paved and not too rough, right into the little elevator that was the exact dimensions of her chair. Then with a vigorous pull on the rope with her strong and capable hands, she would shoot to the second floor and roll out into the Higgledy-Piggledy Shop.
Her coming was always greeted with exclamations of delight by the proprietors of the shop. Clever Danny had so well rigged the little elevator that the usual groaning and squeaking of a misnamed dumb-waiter had been done away with. Her coming would be unheralded by bell or knock and she would glide from the shaft like a veritable fairy princess, so Elizabeth declared.
Irene’s part in the shop had become a very important one, so important that Josie and Elizabeth felt they could hardly do without her. The lame girl’s skill with the needle was in great demand, as one of the chief industries of the unique shop was fine mending, which was not the long suit of either Josie or Elizabeth. One of their principles in running their business, however, was that they must undertake everything that came their way and then, if they could not do it themselves, as Josie put it, they would “farm it out.”
“My, I’m glad to see you!” exclaimed Josie as Irene came gliding from the elevator into their midst. “A lot of lace to be mended and laundered has just arrived. Exquisite stuff and a hurry call. Can you spend the day and work on it for us? There will be at least three dollars in it for you.”
“Of course I can, if you will telephone Auntie,” and Irene drew from her bag her thimble and needle case and soon was at work mending the exquisite point lace that had been left at the shop only that morning by a wealthy and particular old lady. At times, where the work was very delicate, Irene made use of a magnifying glass, which was as much a part of her little sewing kit as her thimble and the very fine needles she delighted in, and the sharp scissors, no longer than her little finger, and the assortment of cotton and silk threads.
“I am going to launder the lace that does not need mending,” said Josie, getting out a diminutive tub, placing ready an ironing board and attaching her electric iron.
“And I’ll go on with my typing,” said Elizabeth. “It is manuscript from a would-be authoress who is all dashes and an occasional period when her pen seemed to be out of breath. I think I should charge extra for punctuation, don’t you, Irene?”
“Certainly,” laughed Irene, “but how would you grade your charges?”
“I’ll give a period for nothing. It is a kind of relief to make a period after such an effusion as this: ‘His flashing eye was bent on her with a look of mingled admiration and rage while in spite of the feeling of uncontrollable fear that filled her pure heart to the brim the beautiful girl first breathing a prayer to her Heavenly Father of whose watchful care she was ever conscious no matter how severe her trials and tribulations raised her sad blue eyes and looked into the bold black ones of the insinuating villain who had by his machinations brought her to this lonesome spot where he hoped to have her in his power and as she looked into those wicked orbs that seemed to Elaine very like the lonesome miasmic tarn by which she had been led on this perilous journey she felt sure of the power of good over evil and as the realization of this great truth came to her the wretch dropped his eyes and turned away.’ All this without a punctuation mark of any kind, not even a dash, except at the tail end where I have thrown in a period. I should get a tenth of a cent for every comma and at least a fifth for semicolons—they come high—and as for a colon: it is worth anything one wishes to charge. I think there is nothing so elegant as colons. They have such a knowing air.”
Irene and Josie laughed heartily at Elizabeth, who went on with her typing, occasionally reading to them choice bits from the manuscript.
“Of course, this joking can only be in the bosom of our official family,” said Elizabeth. “It would never do to get out that we make fun of our patrons.”
“And so is that what you do?” was the gay question flung at them from the door. It was Hortense Markle. “I knocked, but you were laughing so gaily and the typewriter was clicking so noisily that you did not hear.” She tripped in, laying a large package on the table.
“Come in! We are very glad to see you,” said Josie cordially, but into her eyes came the dull fishy look she could assume at will. Elizabeth spoke hospitably to their guest, moving some pamphlets from a chair to make room for her. Irene tried to bring a smile of welcome to her calm, sweet eyes, but she felt that anyone who chose to look could easily tell it was perfunctory.
“I have brought the damask napkins that you promised to launder for me,” said Hortense, untying the cord around her package. “I have just completed the initials and am anxious to have them done up, as I am sure you can do them,” smiling and bowing prettily to Josie. “It is wonderful linen, some Felix got for me the last time he was in New York. He paid untold sums for it but he knows how fond I am of beautiful linen.” She opened up the package and displayed the napkins, which were of exquisite damask of a rare and artistic pattern.
“Why, they have been laundered once,” said Irene, looking at one of the napkins with the pleasure she always felt at the touch of fine fabrics.
“Oh, yes, I often have damask washed before I embroider it. It is so much softer and more sympathetic to the needle. Does not resist it as does unlaundered linen,” explained Hortense easily.
“We have some lace on hand for to-day. Would you mind waiting until to-morrow for your napkins?” asked Josie.
“Not at all! There is no hurry.”
“I must count them and put them down on our books,” said Josie with a business-like air. “Why, there are only twenty-two here. How did you happen not to have the full two dozen?”
“Are you sure? I thought there were two dozen,” said Hortense, frowning as though trying to remember where she could have put the other napkins. “I may have left two at home.”
Josie counted again very carefully.
“Twenty-two! I hope they aren’t lost. Anyhow they aren’t lost here and that is some satisfaction for the Higgledy-Piggledies.”
Another tap at the door and in came Bob Dulaney.
“May I come in? How jolly to find all of you here!” He bowed to them all but looked at Irene when he said “all of you.” “And does the elevator work all right? I was mighty afraid Danny would slip up on the piece of work, but that fellow will tackle anything. He is a wonder for sure.”
“Yes, it works beautifully and I find it the greatest convenience. I am quite independent now and can come and go as I will.”
“How jolly it is up here! Aren’t you afraid at night, Miss O’Gorman?” asked Bob.
“Not a bit! There are too many persons tramping around overhead for me to be afraid, but I wouldn’t be afraid anyhow. I guess nobody would want to hurt me. I haven’t anything to steal as yet. Of course when we get in our rare editions that I am to sell on commission for a man in New York there will be something; also some antique jewelry and some bronzes. We may have a few small rugs soon too.”
Josie turned her dull eyes on Hortense, who had stopped chatting with Elizabeth and was listening attentively to the above conversation.
“So you are going to open up your shop in good earnest, then?” she asked. “How delightful! It’s such an interesting venture. I do hope you will succeed.”
“We are sure to if we keep on as well as we have begun,” said Josie, allowing herself the satisfaction of a little twinkle in her eye. “Business is just rolling in.”
“How much will you charge a fellow if he wants to consult your books?” asked Bob. “There is no library worthy of the name in Dorfield and when I want something very badly I am up against it.”
“Persons are supposed to ask us for information and we do the searching,” explained Josie.
“But that wouldn’t suit me at all. I like to see for myself and one bit of information suggests the advisability of another, and so on. I could spend days with your various encyclopedias just on this one article I am getting up for the Sunday supplement.”
“What is your article on?”
“Criminology! Gee, but I’d like to peek into that notebook of your father’s!” sighed Bob, who took his profession of expert reporter and writer of special articles very seriously.
Josie beckoned to Elizabeth and retiring to the back of the shop the girls held a short consultation. Coming forward, Josie said to Bob:
“My partner and I are going to make an exception in your favor, feeling as we do very grateful to you and all of Danny Dexter’s friends for their kindness to us in launching us so beautifully on our shop-keeping venture. We are going to let you come and consult our books whenever you feel like it. We’d rather not have them taken home unless it is something you find you can’t possibly finish up here in the shop.”
“But how splendid of you! I don’t deserve such a favor. I did nothing but lift bath tubs and things. I can’t accept such kindness, though, unless you let me pay regular rates for what information I pick up.”
“We are not so mercenary as all that,” said Josie, “besides we may need your muscles sometimes and would not know how to pay for them. Let’s call it a draw—fifty-fifty. We might even leave you here sometimes to keep shop for us if you’ll be good.”
“Good! I’d take in the fancy work especially well,” laughed Bob. “I hate to seem greedy, but while I’m poking among your books may I peek in the wonderful notebook?”
Josie paused a moment, turning dull eyes on Mrs. Markle, who had been listening intently to the above conversation, although she seemed to be interested solely in the lace Irene was mending. Her dark eyes were sparkling and her pretty grey suede shoe was nervously tapping the floor. None of this was lost on Josie.
“You mustn’t let me look in it if you really don’t want me to,” Bob continued. “I know it is cheeky of me to ask it.”
“But I will let you,” declared Josie. “I shouldn’t be so silly about the poor little book. You may take it home with you if you promise to take good care of it.” She took the little book from the shelves and handed it to Bob. “Keep it tied up carefully; don’t open it now. I wonder if you can decipher what is in it. I fancy it would be a tough job. Father wouldn’t mind, I am sure. He always liked newspaper chaps, as he called men of your profession, and used to get them to help him often on cases. He helped them too. He used to say they had much more sense about digging out crime and solving mysteries than the average detective. I tell you he handed over many a scoop to young reporters and got them started in their careers with fine feathers in their caps.”
“I can’t tell you how I thank you,” said Bob, taking the shabby little book reverently in his hand and putting it carefully in his breast pocket. “I’ll guard it with my life. I won’t have time to look into it for a day or so, however. And now I’ll be going. I’ll come in day after to-morrow and get my work in with your learned books. I do thank you girls more than I can say. I hope I can lift mountains for you sometime to show you how I appreciate your kindness.”
He stopped a moment to have a little talk with Irene, whose sweet face flushed with pleasure when he asked her if he might call on her that very evening. It was nice to be treated just like other girls.
CHAPTER XIV
ANOTHER CLUE
Bob Dulaney had hardly left the shop before Hortense Markle burst out with the remark:
“Miss O’Gorman, how could you be so imprudent?”
“Imprudent? I? You mean because I told Mr. Dulaney he might come keep shop for us?” asked Josie, looking so stupid Hortense felt like slapping her. “You don’t think that was proper?”
“Proper! The idea! My dear girl, I only meant it was imprudent to let him go off with that valuable book of your father’s. I am sure we all feel an interest in you, and such a book as that is of untold value. Did you not say it contained notes he had kept almost from the beginning of his career and had descriptions of all the noted criminals, convicted and unconvicted?”
“Yes, it has,” answered Josie, putting on the air of a moron. Her tone was so dull and her manner so stupid that Elizabeth and Irene, who well understood the keen intelligence of their partner, looking on in astonishment. What was she trying to do?
“Well, knowing that, don’t you think it was a little too trusting to let a strange young man simply walk off with that precious book in his pocket? He might keep on walking and never come back. Such a treasure as that would be of more value to a collector than I can tell you and Mr. Dulaney could realize more from the sale of such a book than he could make on his tuppenny articles for Sunday supplements in ten years’ time.”
Irene’s eyes were flashing. At least now she had a reason for hating Hortense Markle. What a cruel suggestion! How could she harbor such a thought? Bob Dulaney with his frank open manner and kind, clear eyes, Bob Dulaney a possible thief! Danny Dexter’s friend! Her friend too—she felt she could count him among her real friends. Could she sit there and let such an imputation go unchallenged? She looked at Josie in astonishment. Of course it was her business to combat such an unkind suggestion, but Josie was looking blank as a whitewashed fence. Elizabeth, however, arose to the occasion with:
“I fancy you are mistaken, Mrs. Markle. I am sure Mr. Dulaney is honor itself. I think he can be trusted with anything, no matter how valuable. I’d stake my life on it.”
“And I, mine!” spoke up Irene in a low clear voice.
“Ah, and so the handsome Goliath has champions among the fair sex,” laughed Hortense. “Heavens, children, I had no idea of bringing down such a deluge of vituperation on my poor little head! I was merely interested in the little book, not on my own account but on my husband’s. Felix was so excited over your having such a book, my dear Josie. He has always been interested in codes and hieroglyphics. He was dying for me to ask you to lend it to him, but I utterly refused. No wonder I am a little peeved when you hand it calmly over to the first good looking young man who asks for it. Well, I must be going. Don’t hurry with the napkins and don’t bother to send them to me. I’ll call for them.”
She tripped gaily from the shop, calling back from the door:
“Please don’t be cross with me for suggesting that poor Mr. Dulaney might be tempted by the marvelous little book. He is, to all appearances, a charming young man, but then after all we don’t really know him very well.”
“We know him as well as we know you,” was on the tip of Irene’s tongue, but she did not say it, only bowed her head stiffly when Hortense included her in the beaming smile and wave of farewell.
“Rather catty, I call that,” said Elizabeth, when their charming visitor was well out of ear shot. “What do you think she meant by suggesting such a horrid thing, Josie?”
Josie, who had lost her strange stupid look, laughed gaily at Elizabeth’s question. “She didn’t mean anything at all, Elizabeth. She was put out because the nice, big boy didn’t pay her any attention. He was either talking business and books with you and me or he was leaning over Irene there making engagements. The beautiful Mrs. Markle must be the center of attraction or she won’t play.”
“Oh!” and Irene blushed rosy red. This was indeed being like other girls if somebody was jealous of her. “I can’t help thinking she had some other motive,” Irene whispered to Josie, when Elizabeth went back to her noisy copying of the flamboyant story. “Of course, if such a charmer as Mrs. Markle wanted the attentions of a young man she could have them without lifting an eyelash.”
“I’m not so sure of that,” insisted Josie. “Some men don’t fall for so much beauty of face. They are on the lookout for beauty of soul. Wonderful damask napkins she left! Did you look at the embroidered initials? I hope I won’t scorch them. There is no telling what they are worth. Each one is big enough for a tablecloth.”
“They are wonderful,” said Irene. “I never heard of anyone’s having napkins laundered before the initials were embroidered, but it no doubt is a good thing. Mrs. Markle certainly knows all about it. I have never imagined such perfect work.” She sighed and dropped the lace she was mending for a moment and picked up one of the napkins the closer to scrutinize the regular stitches. Her magnifying glass was in her lap and she gazed at the work through it.
“Why, Josie, come here!” she cried in some excitement. “This napkin has had a piece cut out and a patch put in—one of Mrs. Markle’s incomparable patches, but a patch for all that.”
“See if this one has too,” asked Josie, trying not to show the excitement that she too felt.
“Yes, this one and this one and this one—all of them!” exclaimed Irene in a puzzled tone. “Look, she has matched each thread and then made an initial large enough to cover the patch almost entirely. I never saw such clever work in my life—but why?”
“Perhaps she did not like the initial she first put there and cut it out to put another,” suggested Josie, a twinkle asserting itself in her eyes that she seemed to be trying to make opaque.
“The patches are not all the same size,” declared Irene, picking up napkin after napkin and examining them carefully through her glass. “What can it mean, Josie?”
“Well, I guess we can safely say we have found the other two napkins,” whispered Josie. “They went to make the patches. Also someone besides Hortense did the cutting. Clever Hortense! Not clever enough, however, to get by with it! My father used to say that only the people who went to work taking for granted that others were cleverer than they kept out of the penitentiary. Hortense thinks I am a dullard and you a sweet person who has taken a dislike to her and not to be worried about one way or the other.”
“But what do you mean, Josie? Penitentiary—you can’t—”
“Yes, I can—but don’t tell Elizabeth—anybody in fact—we must catch the whole bunch and, if we jump too soon, we may get only an innocent bystander. I am going to call on you to help me if I need you.”
“What’s that you are not going to tell me?” asked Elizabeth. “This old typewriter makes just enough noise to keep me from catching secrets. Is it ice cream you are going to have up for lunch or are you going to make me pay the gas bill? Is it a pleasant secret or otherwise?”
“Well, it may be both,” answered Josie. “I wasn’t going to tell you because my father always said the more persons you took in on a case the harder it was to get at the bottom of it. He thought they kind of crowded each other when the business narrowed down to the final outcome.”
“But I’m a partner here and if there is anything I might make use of in the way of copy in the literary career I hope to follow, I think it is mean not to tell me,” laughed Elizabeth.
“I guess you are right,” decided Josie. “I may get help from you girls too. But mind not a word or look to a soul to let on you suspect a thing! Swear!”
“We swear!” chorused Irene and Elizabeth in hollow excited tones.
Then Josie told them the whole thing from the beginning; told how she had had some suspicion of the Markles because of something intangibly mysterious about them; told of her visit to the chief of police and the information he had given her concerning a chain of thefts being committed all over the country; told of the mission she had had confided to her before she reached Dorfield; told how she had been confident of something being a bit fishy in Hortense’s not being willing to take off the orchid pin and show it to Billy McGraw, for the reason that it had the Tiffany mark on it, no doubt the initials of his friend Mrs. Thomas. Then she made their blood run cold when she described her first night in the Higgledy-Piggledy Shop and the entrance of the Markles and their theft of the contents of the book.
“But, Josie, weren’t you scared to death?” asked Irene, her eyes big at the thought. “I am not a timid person ordinarily, but I believe I’d have died of fright when they came into the bedroom.”
“Well, I was a bit shaky, I must confess. Persons like the Markles don’t like to kill because it is a low form of wit, but they will do it just as a great humorist will occasionally pun if he can’t get his joke over without it. I was determined to be the first to fire if there was any firing to be done.”
There was nothing dull looking about Josie as she told her story to her two friends and confederates. Had Hortense seen her then, no doubt she would have changed her tactics in dealing with the daughter of the famous detective.
“And now,” said Josie, “in conclusion, as the preachers say, we must be ever watchful and never let on to a soul, man or beast, that we have any suspicion of the Markles. What we know of them is not enough yet to convict them and by waiting, watchful waiting, we may be able to unearth the whole plot and bring a whole gang to justice.”
“It is a little hard on Mr. Dulaney to let him take off the notebook full of blanks,” suggested Irene, a faint flush appearing on her cheeks.
“Yes, I know it is,” agreed Josie, “and I would not have done it except I wanted to see what Hortense would look like when I allowed him to have the precious book. Her face was a study. She has humor enough, I rather like her for that, and there was an amused twinkle in her eyes, relief also when I told the young man not to untie it just then. I fancy there are times when anyone with such a speaking countenance as the Markle has a hard time to appear indifferent. Her suggestions concerning Mr. Dulaney were very slick. Of course if I had not known all the time the book was full of blanks, I would naturally be inclined to hold Mr. Dulaney responsible for such a state of affairs.”
“Yes, that is what I am afraid of,” said Irene, “afraid he may be horribly embarrassed about it when he discovers the hoax.”
“There is danger of that, but I’ll do my best to make it up to him,” answered Josie. “Of course he’ll get the scoop of his lifetime when we finally nab the wretches. Such a scoop will more than repay him for a temporary embarrassment.”
“Are you keeping Chief Lonsdale informed of what you are finding out?” asked Elizabeth, who was beginning to feel that plots were hers for the asking in the stories she meant to write.
“Not on your life! He’d have a bunch of bungling blue-coats snooping around scaring off the game and taking all the final credit. No siree! This is my party. Chief Lonsdale can put as many men as he’s a mind to work digging up evidence, but I bide my time and go it alone. I don’t see any of the detectives helping me any. Now I’m going to finish up this lace before I give up for the day and deliver it to the rich old lady. I saw Mrs. Markle looking at it with a practiced and covetous eye. These people get to be regular kleptomaniacs when they stay in the business long enough. She may be back here at midnight and lift the whole shop.”
“Leave the key in the door so they can’t get the skeleton key in from the outside,” suggested Irene.
“Mere keys and doors don’t worry such as the Felix Markles. They are so clever with burglar tools there is no keeping them out if they want to get in. Of course, if we lock fast the door there is still the ‘dumb-elevator’ as Danny calls it. Bar that fast, or cut the cables and they will manage to come down from the floor above. The thing to do is leave nothing here they want and let them know as much. I wish you would drop in and make a short call at their apartment, Elizabeth, and tell Hortense I am taking back the lace this evening. I must say I’ll sleep better if she knows it is out of my keeping.”
“I’ll do that very thing. Now aren’t you glad you took me in your confidence?”
“I wanted to all along but was trying to follow Father’s plans in going it alone as much as possible.”
“I’d like to see the Markles’ faces when they finally decipher the notes and read ‘The Hound of Heaven,’” said Irene. “What else was in the notes?”
“Oh, long stanzas from ‘Paradise Lost,’ ‘Hamlet’s Soliloquy,’ and pages from ‘Les Misérables’ in French. I don’t speak French at all but I can read it quite well and Father wanted me to be able to take notes in it, as sometimes we have to work with French detectives and he thought it might be useful. Anyhow it was good practice. I copied a lot about the convicts and a chapter on argot. They will have a grand time reading it if they ever master the key. It is almost cruel for me to fool them so when they might spend their time to so much better advantage.”
CHAPTER XV
SIMPKINS & MARKLE
Hortense Markle had besought the friends of Mary Louise to come and call on her, but when Elizabeth Wright was ushered into the charming little drawing room bent on the mission intrusted to her by her partner, she had a feeling that she was not quite so welcome as she had been led to expect. Could it be because she interrupted a tête-a-tête between her hostess and Billy McGraw? That young man seemed to be very much at home in the little apartment, as though he had paid many visits there in the short time he had been acquainted with the charming Mrs. Markle.
Elizabeth was a little embarrassed but determined to fulfill her mission before she left. She liked Billy and hated to see him making a fool of himself over the pretty adventuress. She wished she could save him from the bitter chagrin that would be sure to be his when the sorry business would finally come to light, but her loyalty to Josie forbade her doing or saying a thing to put him on his guard. Then he had paid her just enough attention to make it possible for him to think that jealousy prompted her in anything she might do or say.
“We have been very busy at the shop to-day,” Elizabeth began, in a rather loud tone as though determined that her voice would be heard by Hortense and her husband too, if he had concealed himself somewhere behind the curtains. “Irene finished mending the lace and then Josie laundered the whole lot and I have just delivered it to its owner.”
“Ah, indeed!” ejaculated Hortense.
Was there a note of disappointment in her voice?
“I rather wanted to see that lace again. It was a beautiful pattern. I have a passion for fine and rare lace.”
“Well, it’s safe with the rich old lady who brought it to us,” said Elizabeth, bluntly.
“You are quite wise to get it in safe keeping as soon as possible,” said Hortense, suavely.
“By the way, you never have let me see the orchid pin,” put in Billy. “You remember you promised.”
“Why, of course! I’ll get it immediately.”
She was gone from the room for a few moments. Elizabeth, who usually was very much at home with Billy McGraw, now sat in silence. For the moment she had nothing to say. He looked at her a little uneasily.
“Are you—are you—kind of angry with me?” he finally said.
“I? The idea! Why should I be angry with you?”
“I don’t know. You don’t seem so—so—chummy as you do sometimes.”
“Chummy? I did not know I had been quite that,” she said with a touch of coldness that she could not keep from her tones.
“Now I know you have got it in for me somehow.”
Elizabeth said nothing as Hortense came back in the room with the orchid pin which she handed to Billy.
“My, it’s a peach!” he declared. He examined it with great interest. “It is as near like Vi Thomas’ as can be. Hers, of course, had Tiffany’s mark on the back and a date, as I remember, some date that meant something to her and her husband.
“Mine just has the name Felix loves to call me, ‘Pet.’ It sounds awfully silly and sentimental, but he would have it on.”
“Can’t I see it?” asked Elizabeth, wishing in her heart she had a magnifying glass handy, feeling sure there would be marks of other things to be disclosed. She noticed that the gold mounting back of the pin was slightly concave. “No doubt Josie will attach much importance to that,” she said to herself.
“You promised some day to show me your original Rembrandt etching,” she said to Hortense. “I have never seen one.”
“Have you an original Rembrandt?” asked Billy. “You never told me. I’d certainly like to see it. The Thomases had a crackerjack of a Rembrandt. Of course that was lifted too when the orchid pin was.”
“Heavens! what luck. Those Thomases seem to be perfect Jonahs,” laughed Hortense. Elizabeth thought she detected a little sharp note in her laugh.
“I am terribly sorry not to show you my treasure of treasures, but the frame was pulling loose a bit and Felix has taken it to have it mended. Anything as precious as a Rembrandt must be framed in an airtight frame. Felix has been offered a huge sum for our Rembrandt and I am trembling for fear he might sell it. Of course, I know that persons of our means have no business owning such a rare etching but I would so hate to part with it. Felix is something of a speculator in such things, while I have more the soul of the born collector.”
“I should think you would live in continual fear of having your things snatched from you,” said Elizabeth, wondering at her own cruelty in making such a remark.
“I do,” said Hortense, sadly. “Why, Felix is so keen on a trade that I shouldn’t be astonished if he wanted sometime to sell my lovely orchid pin.”
“Ah, but the ‘Pet’ engraved on the back would keep him from doing that,” suggested Billy, thinking what a mercenary brute the husband must be.
“Oh, but that could be taken off,” said Elizabeth with an air of childlike innocence. “We had some marks taken off some silver one time. It was the initials of a person who had married into my father’s family and had her initials put on an old family tea service. She had no right to the service and the service was ruined in our eyes by the addition of her initials. Of course, it meant some of the thickness of the silver had to be sacrificed to get rid of the engraving and there is almost a concavity where there used to be a convexity, but we prefer that to the initials of the interloper.”
“Oh, please don’t tell my husband such a thing could be done,” was Hortense’s playful rejoinder. “He would surely get some of the eraser and take off the ‘Pet.’ Of course, this little pin is very valuable as a work of art and I shouldn’t object if we get really hard up. I have never been an unreasonable wife, and we have had our ups and downs.”
“You might write to your friend Mr. Thomas,” Elizabeth suggested to Billy, “and tell him there is a chance for him to buy the duplicate of the pin his wife lost.” Elizabeth well understood she was teasing Mrs. Markle, but could not resist doing it, feeling assured that she was supposed to be unconscious of so doing.
“Don’t do it! Please don’t do it!” begged Hortense, plainly alarmed. “If this Mr. Thomas hears of this pin he might make a bid for it and Felix is almost sure to take him up, although it does belong to me. I couldn’t bear to part with my beautiful pin. It has such wonderful associations. You see, Felix gave it to me in our early married life when everything was quite different.” This, of course, was for Billy’s benefit and he looked sad and promised he would not write to his friend.
Hortense looked daggers at Elizabeth, who began to feel that she was regarded as being a bit catty, the expression that she had so recently used to describe Hortense.
“No doubt I am,” Elizabeth said to herself, “but I couldn’t resist it.” Aloud, she remarked that she must be going. Mrs. Markle did not urge her to remain. She found this girl Elizabeth a little too inclined to suggest unpleasant things. She was on the whole rather relieved when Billy McGraw offered to take Elizabeth home in his car. She wanted to get rid of both callers and to see Felix alone and report to him that things were getting a trifle warm.
“I am afraid my clever puss has been talking too much,” suggested Mr. Markle, when his wife told him of her having been asked to exhibit the Rembrandt.
“Oh, I can’t think it. You see, one must be natural and what more natural than to say one has a Rembrandt if it is the case?”
“That’s so! We may be moving on soon, Pet. Simpkins & Markle had a fine offer to-day for a furnished apartment, and no questions asked. This would be the very one and we could take with us all the doubtful things and still leave a costly enough place.”
“Not before the wedding, surely!” she exclaimed.
“Well, hardly, when my wife is to be matron of honor! We will be here several months longer. What is the date fixed!”
“June the twelfth! Must I give out that there is a chance of our moving?”
“Not yet, but when you do, of course you must be the abused young wife with the peculiar and mercenary husband. That is a great stunt of yours. I heard what you were saying to that young ass of a McGraw.”
“Not jealous, are you?” she asked coyly.
“Not a bit! Just more in love with you than ever. I don’t know what I’d do without such a clever wife and such a stupid business partner. Simpkins is duller than ever. He accepts everything on its face value in the firm and assists me in operating the business with never an idea in his numskull that he is not conducting a perfectly legitimate thing. Of course, we have a lot of simple deals on that any real estate firm might have and then we have this out of town rental list that I attend to as much as possible. Sometimes, though, it is up to him and he accepts it with perfectly good grace. Specializing as we do in elegantly furnished apartments brings in a class of clients with whom he is unfamiliar and they seem in a measure to overawe him into extra stupidity.”
Dorfield and the neighboring towns were suffering from the after war congested conditions quite as much as were the large cities. New industries had sprung into existence, bringing many strangers to settle in the towns. Building was high and the cost of materials was increasing every day. That was forcing up the price of real estate and quite ordinary little apartments were renting for fabulous sums. When those apartments were furnished the supposed value was doubled. And when they were furnished elegantly the agents could go as far as they liked in their demands upon the tenants.
Simpkins & Markle were doing a flourishing business, specializing in small, elegantly furnished apartments. They had branch offices in all the neighboring towns, Mr. Markle being the traveling member who kept in touch with the branch offices.
These apartments were always let with the greatest care as to the form of lease. The empty apartment would be rented to a young couple who would sign the lease and pay a month’s rent in advance. Then their household goods would arrive from some distant state and be installed. Rugs, pictures, beautiful furniture of all kinds, silver, china, table linen, etc. The couple would live in the apartment for about a month and then the young husband would report at the real estate office that he had a raise, a new job, a sick mother, or something and wanted to sub-let his apartment, furnished. Of course, the beautiful furnishings would double and sometimes triple the value of the rooms and Simpkins & Markle would reap a reward. Simpkins would never be called upon to interview this couple and would therefore never be struck with its likeness to the couple before. He seemed merely to see that the firm was doing well and their kind of business was a lucrative one. He stayed in Dorfield and kept the books and attended to the old Dorfield business, which was slow but steady, while his more active partner attended to the furnished apartment rentals. His was the duty to pass on to the distant young couple the profits reaped by their contract in sub-renting.
The unerring taste of Hortense was often called in play to arrange the furniture in these apartments. She could put a touch to them that would add greatly to their value. Strangers, warned beforehand of the difficulty of finding any place to live and almost hopeless of obtaining even a roof over their heads, would be carried off their feet when shown these beautiful rooms where Hortense had had her artistic will. No price seemed too high for such a haven of rest and beauty.
There can be little doubt in the minds of my readers where this furniture came from. A chain of burglars reaching from New York to San Francisco were ever busy robbing any and every house where they could make an entrance. Then the spoils were carefully sorted and shifted to far away points where detection was not likely. Felix and Hortense Markle were head and brains for this bold undertaking. They worked under many aliases and sometimes appeared as father and daughter, sometimes brother and sister, sometimes they worked singly, but usually they were husband and wife. They were clever beyond the belief of ordinary mortals, so clever that their existence was doubted by some of the most astute and highly esteemed detectives. O’Gorman had been on their track and was in a fair way to come up with them when the war broke out and he was compelled to serve his country in other ways besides bringing to justice a pair of the cleverest thieves he confessed himself ever to have seen. He had talked to Josie of his ambition and had given her what information he possessed. This form of real estate hoax was a new one with the Markles, but their method was the one they had always used, that of living in a respectable and decent way and making friends with the best people in the town where they hoped to get the most loot.
Sleepy Dorfield was a good place for their machinations. There was a good deal of wealth in town and the friendship of Mary Louise and her grandfather was “open sesame” to the society of Dorfield.
CHAPTER XVI
A DINNER PARTY
There was some excitement in the Wright family when Elizabeth came speeding home in Billy McGraw’s stylish little racer. They had grown accustomed if not resigned to the peculiarities of this member of the family who insisted upon working all day in a funny shop with an unstylish little person, the daughter of a policeman so they understood. Her only value in their eyes was that she was a friend of Mary Louise’s. As has been remarked before, that fact went a long way in the opinion of Dorfield towards establishing a person as worthy of being cultivated.
Another thing that was reconciling the Wright family somewhat to Elizabeth’s erratic mode of life was that she had begun to put money in the bank. This they were sure of, as one of the sisters had had a peep in her bank book. The shop was proving a financial success and in the eyes of one’s family nothing succeeds like monetary success.
And here was Elizabeth driving up in style in the car of the young man conceded by all Dorfield mothers and daughters to be the most desirable catch in town. Next to catching him themselves the sisters of Elizabeth would have liked to have her catch him. The mother was perfectly impartial as to which member of her family should land such a large game fish.
“I don’t believe she even asked him in,” declared Gertrude, peeping out the window.
“I am sure she didn’t,” agreed Annabel. “I know he would have come in if she had asked him. Elizabeth doesn’t know how to handle men at all.”
“No, she is simply foolish the way she goes to work,” said Pauline. “No man likes to be cut so short. She just gave him a little nod and came on in before he had even got back in his car and started his engine. She’ll never win out with such indifference.”
“I don’t know about that,” put in Margaret, who loved to take the opposite view, “sometimes the grand independent way is quite taking, especially with a man like Billy McGraw, who has been spoiled to death. How did you happen to get a lift?” This to Elizabeth, who had just entered the room.
“I met Billy at Mrs. Markle’s and he asked to bring me home, as he was coming this way,” said Elizabeth with as much sangfroid as she could muster.
“I think I shall have the Markles and Mr. McGraw to dinner soon,” said Mrs. Wright, who had listened with half an ear to the conversation of her daughters. “I have meant to entertain them for some time and since they are such friends of Billy McGraw’s it would be agreeable to have them all come together.”
“I wouldn’t,” faltered Elizabeth. “You are not called on to entertain them.”
“I fancy I am the best judge of that,” said her mother sharply. “I should like to know since when it has been necessary for one of my daughters to dictate to me when I should and should not entertain in my own house. You say you have been calling at Mrs. Markle’s and it seems quite fitting then that I should call on her and invite her to dinner.”
“Don’t you like Mrs. Markle?” asked Margaret curiously, noting with amusement that Elizabeth had flushed painfully under her mother’s tirade. Mrs. Wright’s tirades were not usually looked upon very seriously by her daughters.
“Why, I never thought much about it,” said Elizabeth evasively.
“I fancy she is some beau grabber,” suggested Pauline.
“Why did you call on her if you didn’t like her?” asked Gertrude.
“Heavens above!” ejaculated Elizabeth. “Perhaps I had some business to attend to—or perhaps I didn’t,” remembering suddenly that her business with Mrs. Markle was of a delicate nature and not to be mentioned outside of the bosom of the Higgledy-Piggledy.
“What business?” insisted Gertrude.
“The kind one gets rich attending to, my own,” said Elizabeth. She knew she was rude, but why couldn’t her family let her alone? She had worked hard all day typing the novel for the would-be author; writing an obituary notice for a bereaved gentleman who had just lost his fourth wife; and polishing up a paper for an aspiring leader of a literary club. She was tired now and would have liked to go to her room and be quiet for a few moments. How different life was at the shop! There everybody was busy and nobody had time to be poking her nose in everybody’s business.
“I fancy your business was running after Billy McGraw,” continued Gertrude. Since rudeness was the order of the day, she was fully capable of doing her share to keep the ball rolling.
Elizabeth’s inclination was to answer with increased acrimony but she thought better of it and merely left the room, even refraining from slamming the door, which was always a good way to get the last word in an argument in the Wright household.
“Why, why, can’t they let me alone?” she asked herself when she got to the room which she shared with Margaret. She vaguely wished she had kept her temper and not been so quick to take it for granted that her sisters were interfering.
“They are so idle is the reason they ask so many questions, I am sure,” she argued with herself. “I should feel sorry for them because they don’t know what fun it is to be busy. I’m going to try to be nicer and bring home something in the way of news that will be helpful to them instead of flying off the handle the way I did. I do wish though that Mother wouldn’t entertain the Markles. Of course, she is doing it to encourage Billy McGraw. Mother’s methods are too apparent for him who runs not to read. Only suppose the Markles come and find things here they want.” Here Elizabeth had to giggle a bit to herself. “They might go off with Father’s first editions and the great-grandfather forks, to say nothing of the silver slop basin in which George Washington is supposed to have drunk his toddy. What am I to do? I shouldn’t let Mother entertain such persons, but there is no stopping her short of divulging my real reason for not having them and that would be queering Josie’s game. Well, maybe it will teach Mother a lesson. Of course if anything does happen they will blame me for being the one to introduce them to such persons.”
The outcome was that the Wrights did entertain the Markles and Billy McGraw on the same evening, although Elizabeth put in one more earnest protest which had no more effect than to raise the ire of her mother and sisters, who declared she was a dog in the manger. Evidently she did not want Billy McGraw herself, but she didn’t want any of her sisters to have him.
“He is taken with you, anyone can see with half an eye,” declared Gertrude. “But you treat him just as though he were any ordinary young man—”
“Isn’t he?” asked Elizabeth.
“Pooh! You know he is a cut above the others with all that money.”
The dinner party proved a success in spite of Elizabeth’s embarrassment. The poor girl felt that the evening would never end. The Wrights knew how to entertain and nobody in Dorfield could give a better dinner than Mrs. Wright; the daughters were handsome and could be agreeable; Mr. and Mrs. Markle had a social gift and easy manners that insured a light, pleasant conversation wherever they were invited.
Elizabeth almost had hysterics when she saw her father leading Mr. Markle into his sanctum sanctorum to show him his rare first editions, his autographed copies, etc. Mrs. Markle was delighted with the Boydell plates from Shakespeare and the portfolio of Hogarth’s drawings handed down from an ancestor, who also collected.
“And this is the silver service you spoke of,” she said to Elizabeth. “See, Felix, this old service was marked and Mrs. Wright had the initials removed. Isn’t that wonderful?” she said naïvely to her husband. “I wonder how they do it. It is a wonderful piece of silver. Only feel how heavy! And look at those brass candlesticks! Heavens, Mrs. Wright! Those candlesticks are worth more than their weight in gold. They are of a rare and wonderful design. Surely you don’t go off to the beach and leave such treasures unprotected?”
“Oh, yes,” said Mrs. Wright, delighted that her guest was so appreciative of the heirlooms. “We have never had any burglaries in Dorfield, at least none for years to amount to anything. Of course, as a rule, we take the silver with us.”
“Oh, of course,” said Hortense, and Elizabeth listened for the disappointed note she felt was surely in her voice.
“We either take it with us or hide it somewhere in the house,” continued Mrs. Wright. “This heavy service I usually hide in first one place and then another. Sometimes I hide things so well I can’t find them myself. The tops of wardrobes are famous places. Nobody ever thinks of looking for things there.”
“Of course, nobody would,” commented Hortense.
“I am to begin tomorrow to pack up for the summer,” went on Mrs. Wright, rather pleased that this young woman was so attentive. “You see, we are to go to the lake just as soon as Mary Louise’s wedding is over. That is quite soon now. To-morrow I send the servants out to the lake house to get it ready for us. It makes it rather inconvenient for us, but it is only for a few days and then it is nice when we get there to have everything in such perfect order.”
“All of you will go to the wedding?” asked Hortense.
“Oh, yes, Mary Louise has invited the entire family. It was no less than she could do since Elizabeth is one of the bridesmaids. Mr. Wright is not inclined to accept invitations, but we have persuaded him to go to this wedding, since it is really the event of the year. Of course, the girls and I would not miss it for anything.”
Elizabeth was glad when the evening was over. It embarrassed her to see the way in which her mother and sisters made up to Billy McGraw and the warmer their manners became the colder grew her own towards that young man, who could not understand what he had done to merit her disapproval. The more distant she became the closer he tried to come. He forgot to look at the beautiful Mrs. Markle in his endeavor to make Elizabeth smile on him.
CHAPTER XVII
ANOTHER VISIT TO THE CHIEF
Felix Markle was at the very top of his profession. A man of rare culture and natural refinement and of indomitable will and courage, he might have made a name for himself in any walk of life he had chosen to follow. It was a pity that so much that was fine in him should have gone to make a master thief instead of the noble leader he might have been.
The possession of Detective O’Gorman’s notebook was of the greatest importance to him. The deciphering of it would tell exactly how much the secret service knew concerning him and his accomplices. How much was known concerning his aliases and if his wife was suspected or had been at any time.
He was determined to protect her at any cost, but everything was going so well he could see no reason to doubt that they could go on with their clever schemes indefinitely. Every now and then one of the supposed owners of the elegantly furnished apartments determined to have a sale and then large sums would be realized on the stolen treasures. The firm of Simpkins & Markle would handle the sale, taking out their commission and Markle would have the part of seeing that the fictitious owners got their share of the profits. All transactions appeared on the books of the real estate firm and any expert examiner of those books would have pronounced everything to be in perfect form and order.
Josie O’Gorman had hoped to keep up with the case unaided by mere man, but things were getting too much for her. She began to lose sleep going over and over how best she could trap the persons of whose dishonesty she was assured. Her idea was not to spring the trap too soon for fear she might lose some of the principal offenders. After many sleepless nights, she determined to take Chief Charley Lonsdale into her confidence and ask for his support.
On this visit she found the man at the door awake and taking notice.
“You can’t see the chief,” he announced decisively, looking at Josie as though she were thin air. “He’s that busy he says he can’t see a soul. If you are after making a complaint about a neighbor’s hens? or the like, there’s a man at the desk for such business.”
Josie’s eyes took on the dull look she loved to assume when there was important business on hand.
“It’s worse than hens—it’s tigers!” she exclaimed. “A man at the desk can’t attend to tigers. I must see the chief.”
The astonished man let her pass. Of course tigers were a little too important for a small man like the one at the desk to cope with.
The chief was alone and busy looking over some papers. A worried frown was on his brow. He looked up a moment after Josie entered.
“Ah, the little O’Gorman! Nothing doing, I fancy, and you have come for help.”
“I have come for help but not because there is nothing doing. I could handle that situation alone,” replied Josie in a cool drawl that was ludicrously like the tone her father had used and it made Chief Lonsdale smile. “There is so much doing that I have had to come for help. I hate to do it, as I’d like the glory along with the work, but I can’t let the whole school of fish escape just so I can have the honor of landing the biggest one of the lot. Father used to say that a detective must first consider his duty to society; that is, to get the wrong-doers caught, never mind who does the catching.”
“Humph! I wish there were more of his way of thinking. Now tell us all about it.”
Josie sat down and unfolded her tale from the beginning. She made the man’s eyes wide with astonishment when she told of the Markles’ entrance into her shop and the purloining of the notebook. He laughed delightedly over what Markle was spending so much time trying to master.
“The Hound of Heaven!” he cried. “That sounds like good stuff. And who is this young newspaper chap who has drawn the blank? Does he know it yet?”
“He has been very busy and has not yet opened the book,” explained Josie. “I have seen him once and he tells me he has it in his breast pocket and is waiting for an evening off when he intends to untie the hard knot of the ribbon and then try to unravel the cipher. I was sorry not to put him on to the fake, but I felt I had better not take anyone else into our confidence just yet. I’ll set his mind at rest when he finds it out, because, of course, he will feel responsible for it. I am rather hoping Mrs. Markle will be around when he lets me know about it. I like to study her. She is a deep one, for sure.
“Of course,” she continued, “up to this time we have nothing to go upon but suspicion, except that they came in and purloined the notebook. The fact that Mr. McGraw’s friends in New York lost an enamel pin and all their etchings and rugs, etc., and that Mrs. Markle has a pin like the one lost is no proof, but link by link the chain is being forged and, in my own mind, I am sure of them. Of course, I overheard their talk when they were in my shop, and that is enough to settle the matter for me, but it wouldn’t amount to much as evidence. Not even the fact that former initials had been cut out of the napkins would count for much.”
“Well, now, what do you advise?” asked the chief, quite humbly. This girl’s level-headed ingenuity amazed him.
“I advise a very circumspect supervision of the real estate firm of Simpkins & Markle first,” said Josie. “If by hook or crook one could get hold of their books and see where they have done business lately. Do you know Simpkins?”
“Yes, went to school with him—a man of no imagination and perfect honesty—dull though—dull.”
“Any means?”
“Doing well—very well—so I am told, especially since he has gone into partnership with this Markle.”
“You see, if we could get some idea of where their business is located we could spread nets all around and catch the whole bunch of confederates. Have you someone you can trust not to bungle?” Josie looked so solemn and so young the chief had to smile behind his papers.
“Perhaps!” and then the man and the girl put their heads together and step by step traced out their strategic plans.
“I hope the ax won’t drop until after Mary Louise is married and off on her wedding trip,” sighed Josie. “Poor Mary Louise is always getting mixed up in other persons’ villainies.”
“Yes, if we could only warn her of the perfidy of this new friend. Don’t you think we might?” asked the chief, who was as fond of Mary Louise as though she had been his own daughter.
“Never! In the first place, she wouldn’t believe any tales about her dear Hortense, and in the second, she would queer our game by trying to get her off if she was convinced of her being a criminal. Mary Louise is not of the stern stuff that you and I are made of, Chief.”
“Well, I only hope they won’t be trying any of their monkey tricks at her wedding,” laughed the man. “But they would hardly do that. Anyhow, we must be prepared and, of course, our object is to catch them redhanded. I may have to send to New York for assistance, but I promise you that no matter what help I get, you are the boss of this job.”
“I wish I had been born triplets,” sighed Josie. “I’d like to run on to New York and have a personal interview with this friend of Billy McGraw’s named Thomas who had his stuff all lifted—as it is, I think you had better put some man on the job who can fix it up with him to be in Dorfield in the next few days, or immediately after the wedding, so he can identify his goods. I have an idea most of his things are right here in the Markle apartment. Of course, he must not let on to McGraw that he is coming or he will queer the whole thing by mentioning to Hortense Markle that he is expecting his friend and she will see to it that all traces are removed. She is slick as slick can be and has that young fellow guessing, not that he is in love with her, but just fascinated by her big eyes and her confiding girlish manner. My opinion is that she is madly in love with that scamp of a husband but she leads these rich young men on just to fleece them.”
“Yes, I know the type,” put in the chief.
The young girl and the old man were agreed that they would try to hold off until after their dear Mary Louise was married and started on her wedding trip, then they would close in around the Markles and their confederates and have the matter all settled before Danny and his bride should return from their honeymoon.
“Nothing must come up to cloud the girl’s happiness,” said Josie, and the chief said: “Amen!”
CHAPTER XVIII
BOB DULANEY RETURNS THE NOTEBOOK
The next day the shop was doing a thriving business. Josie was busily engaged in hunting up information concerning the best method to pursue when contemplating taking a donkey trip through Spain for a middle aged lady who had saved money for the venture and was determined to have the trip in spite of discouraging friends; Elizabeth was touching up a club paper on extra foraneous ornamentation; and Irene, who had been sent for in a hurry to do some smocking, had just wheeled herself from the dumb-waiter, produced her thimble and gone to work.
Hortense Markle came into the shop looking, as usual, fresh as the dawn and her eyes sparkling like dew drops. Josie looked at her almost pityingly. It seemed so sad to her that anyone who looked so charming could be so wicked.
“I have brought some trifling little gew-gaws that Felix and I have picked up at various times in our travels, thinking you young merchants might have some sale for them. They are of no great value, but there is no use in keeping such things around the house when one no longer cares for them,” she said, opening a package she carried. “Would you care to try to sell them?”
“Sure, we would,” answered Josie. “We are expecting to go into that kind of business a good deal. Are the things antiques?”
“Some of them! Here is a cameo brooch that is really quite pretty, but I am not the cameo brooch type. I can’t imagine what made Felix take—buy—such a thing.” Josie noticed the little slip but her expressionless face gave no clue to her thoughts. “Here is a chain, quite pretty, and a locket too.”
There were various trinkets, all of them accepted by the girls and a price agreed upon for them. They were to receive a commission on the sales.
“I have some rugs too that we don’t want,” continued Hortense. “Would you like them? Perhaps you might buy them outright and make quite a pretty penny on them.”
“Send them around and we will see about it,” said Josie. “Are they handsome?”
“Yes, quite fine! Felix thinks they are prettier than the ones we are using but I have a fancy for the old ones to which I have grown accustomed.”
Irene and Elizabeth listened to the above conversation with feelings of mingled astonishment and amusement. Life for those girls was very interesting during the days while the net was slowly closing around the unconscious Markles. They could not help feeling sorry for them, but at the same time disgust at Hortense’s perfidy was uppermost in the minds of the girls who had led quiet sheltered lives themselves.
“Tell me, Miss O’Gorman, has young Mr. Dulaney ever brought back your father’s notebook, and could he make head or tail of the pot-hooks?” asked Hortense, pretending to be very nonchalant.
“No, not yet, but he was to get to it last evening,” answered Josie. “But here he is now.”
Bob Dulaney came in the shop looking decidedly perturbed.
“Oh, Miss O’Gorman, I am worried stiff,” he cried, taking in the other occupants with a general bow. “I can’t bear to meet you, but I must have it over with. Do you know something has happened to the book you lent me, your father’s notebook, I mean. I have not had it out of my possession since you handed it to me, in my breast pocket all the time and when my coat was not on my back it was hanging on a chair by my bed. I have not had time to open the little book until last night. Then I untied the hard knot of the ribbons and found the book filled with nothing but blank pages. I can’t account for it. Certainly when you showed it to us when you moved in, it had ciphered notes in it. I remember well that you untied the strings and the pages were covered close with hieroglyphics. You put it back on the shelves tightly tied up and I fancy it had not been opened since. In fact, I think you said it had not when you lent it to me.”
It was difficult for Josie to pretend to the perturbed young man, but she felt she must keep up the farce before the watchful Hortense. She devoutly hoped Irene and Elizabeth could hold on to themselves. She could plainly see they were excited and that Irene was filled with pity for poor Bob.
“It is too bad,” said Josie with as cold a voice as she could muster. “I should not have let the book get out of my possession. Of course, I don’t know myself what was in it, never having had time to dig out the meaning since my father died, but I understood from him that the information in it would be of the greatest value for the secret service.”
“I know it—but oh, Miss O’Gorman, I can’t tell you how I feel about it. I’m so miserable. I’m going to see a detective about it immediately. I don’t see how it happened, or who could have known even that I had it. Could it have been done before I took it?”
“Well, hardly,” spoke up Hortense with something of a sneer. “I was here when Miss O’Gorman gave it to you and she remarked at the time that—”
“Well, there is no use in crying over spilt milk, as my father used to say,” interrupted Josie. “I have learned a lesson and that is perhaps as worth while as the information detectives may have gained from the book—that is, not to lend too promiscuously.”
Irene turned away her face. She felt so sorry for Bob she could not bear to look at him. She felt Josie was carrying the thing too far, but she knew she must keep out of the discussion. If she could only let Bob know that she trusted him.
“I am so sorry! That is all I can say,” and Bob turned to go. “Good-by, all of you. I fancy you won’t want to see me in your shop any more.”
“Oh, well, we may have to see you to try and clear up this matter,” said Josie, brusquely. She followed him to the door and out into the hall. Her manner suddenly changed.
“Shh!” she warned. “It is all right. Don’t worry a minute. I have the notes all safe. You must forgive me for being so rude. Don’t ask any questions now but come back in a few minutes. Wait across the street until you see Mrs. Markle is gone, or better still, go to the back of the house and come up in the elevator and wait there until she is out of the house. We need your help. Understand?”
“No, but it is all right if you say so,” was Bob’s relieved reply.
“Well, young man, you come back here as soon as the coast is clear and, if you are sharp, you are going to assist in the biggest haul of fourflushers of this century. Also, you are going to get the scoop of your life for your paper. But don’t move without letting me know.” With that Josie turned back the collar of her middy blouse and disclosed a badge that made Bob whistle.
The young man carried down those old stairs a much lighter heart than he had carried up.
“Who would have thought it?” he muttered. “A chip of the old block, that’s sure—but what has the beautiful Mrs. Markle to do with it? Gee! But life is interesting!”
When Josie went back in the shop, Hortense began with a bitter invective against Bob Dulaney. Of course, he had purloined the notes. He very well knew their value and was simply trying to pull the wool over Josie’s eyes. Empty and blank papers indeed! She had seen the sheets all covered with notes with her own eyes and had seen Josie tie the ribbons around the little book in the hardest kind of a knot. Dulaney had simply sold them to some collector. For her part she had no faith in him. Why didn’t Josie send for the police? Josie told her perhaps she would but, after all, she doubted the papers being so very valuable. She only prized them for sentimental reasons. Irene sat like a frozen girl during the conversation. She longed for Hortense to go, which she did soon, and then Bob came whizzing up in the dumb-waiter and there was general rejoicing in the Higgledy-Piggledy Shop.
“We must lie very low and keep very quiet,” warned Josie. “Remember we are all novices and dealing with hardened criminals. We must not make the mistake the Markles are making in underestimating the intelligence of our opponents. Father always said to give the enemy credit for having more sense and ingenuity than you possess yourself and try to make up for your possible lack by eternal vigilance. Do you realize, Elizabeth, that our shop has been drawn into this net, that we are receivers of stolen goods? Every one of these trinkets has been stolen, also the rugs she is to send up on approval. Of course, she hopes we will buy them outright and hand over the money in case she and her rascally husband may have to vamoose in a hurry. We will keep her waiting for a few days, eh, partner Elizabeth?”
CHAPTER XIX
THE WEDDING
The twelfth of June was just such a day as it should have been for the wedding day of the lovely Mary Louise and her darling Danny Dexter. The weather is always an important factor for a successful undertaking of any kind, but a stormy wedding day is something we cannot forgive the weather man. It was especially important that the sun should shine, but not too hotly, and the breezes should be soft and gentle for this wedding, since it was to be staged out of doors.
“And what is so rare as a day in June?
Then, if ever, come perfect days;
Then Heaven tries earth if it be in tune,
And over it softly her warm ear lays;
Whether we look, or whether we listen,
We hear life murmur, or see it glisten.”
That twelfth of June was just such a day as Lowell describes in his immortal poem. Everybody was happy, even Grandpa Jim, since his beloved child was not really being taken from him. He was merely being presented with a grandson-in-law who would but add to the joy of his declining years. The wedding trip was to take Mary Louise away for only two weeks and Irene was to stay with him until Mr. and Mrs. Danny Dexter should return.
The ceremony was to be at high noon, followed by a wedding breakfast, the splendor and lavishness of which was to be the talk of Dorfield for days to come. Colonel Hathaway was not inclined to show, but the marriage of this dear grandchild was of paramount importance to the old man and he felt that nothing must be left undone to make this wedding breakfast perfect. The list of guests had grown, as such lists always do grow, and to the dear friends and intimates were gradually added the new acquaintances of grandfather and granddaughter. It was difficult to draw the line, since both old man and young girl had such kindly feelings for everybody in Dorfield and everybody surely loved them.
“Why draw the line, since it is so difficult?” Grandpa Jim had remarked. “If there is any doubt about whether we should or shouldn’t ask anybody, for goodness’ sake let’s ask them. It is better to err on that side of the ledger.” And so the invitation ended by being general, much to the delight and satisfaction of Dorfield. Mrs. Wright, after all, might have spared herself her trouble of maneuvering for invitations for her daughters.
The bridesmaids had arrived. They looked very like the bunches of sweet peas they were to carry. As for the bride, no lily of the field could have been fairer.
“Her angel face as the great eye of Heaven shone bright
And made a sunshine in a shady place.
Did ever mortal eye behold such heavenly grace?”
quoted Elizabeth in a whisper to Josie. Josie had refused to be a bridesmaid, but was with them upstairs where they were waiting for the hour to strike. “I do wish Irene could see you now,” she said to Mary Louise.
“Where is she, the dear girl? I’ll run down and speak to her before the people all come.”
“You could hardly do that, honey, as Irene is already out on the lawn. She has wheeled her chair to the spot where we decided she must sit so she can be part of the ceremony, as it were.”
“Here I am!” cried Hortense Markle tripping into the room. “I was so afraid you would worry about my not getting here in time. I am a wee bit late, but dear Felix is ill and I could not leave him before.”
“Oh, I am so sorry,” said Mary Louise. “Is he in bed?”
“No, he is sitting up with his dressing gown wrapped around him. It is just one of those miserable neuralgic attacks he is subject to, but it completely lays him out, poor fellow. He is so sorry not to come to the wedding. In fact, up to the last minute, he hoped he would be able to control the wretched headache and come anyhow, but he finally had to give up. I gave him a huge dose of aspirin. I really hated to leave him but, of course, I could not be absent from such a post of honor at such a time. The matron of honor is almost as necessary to a bride as the groom himself. But how beautiful you are, my dear Mary Louise! And the girls! They are wonderful. I am almost sorry I am to be in the picture, I want so much to see it.”
Hortense herself was as beautiful as could be. Her dress of the palest grey made over iridescent silk was perfect and her glowing beauty shone in a manner that Elizabeth thought of as being almost diabolical in its lure.
“I am sorry I know what she is,” Elizabeth whispered to Josie. “I can’t enjoy her beauty as I should like to, knowing as I do what a thing she is.”
“Well, keep up a face, anyhow,” admonished Josie. “I am expecting trouble. I hope it won’t go wrong.”
“I promised to telephone Felix just before the ceremony,” said Hortense. “He says he wants to picture us as we go through the yew hedge. He is really quite sentimental about this wedding, dear Mary Louise. You are a prime favorite with him and he thinks great things of your Danny.”
At last the hour struck! It was time for the start. The guests had gathered on the lawn. It was hard for some of them to tear themselves away from the room where the wedding presents were placed. Such wedding presents! Cases of silver of every known pattern and device! Cut glass and fine china! Wonderful rugs and tapestries! Rare etchings and prints! Linen fine enough for a king’s ransom! All of these things were in a little room downstairs that connected Grandpa Jim’s bedroom and the living room. This room Mary Louise had always used as an extra sitting room where she could take her intimates. It had been cleared of furniture for the occasion and tables brought in to hold all the beautiful presents. Some of the more curious guests wanted to linger and read every card and look at the bottom of every piece of silver to see if, by chance, anyone could have sent anything not marked sterling; but when the rumor went forth that the bridal procession was ready to start, the curious ones hastened for the terraces. Hortense telephoned to her husband a moment before they left the house.
“We are ready, dear,” she said in the phone in Mary Louise’s room, “Just starting! You may think of us in five minutes now as being in the midst of the ceremony. I hope your dear head is better. Oh, I am so sorry! Go to bed dear!”
Josie watched every movement of the matron of honor. Nothing escaped the little detective. It was easy to see that Hortense was filled with an excitement that merely being matron of honor did not warrant. Her eyes were sparkling and her cheeks were flushed. Her beauty glowed like a ruby. Occasionally, Josie noticed she stood still for a moment in an attitude of listening. Josie listened too up to the moment the bridal party came through the yew hedge and made its way to the spot on the greensward where the minister awaited. Then for a moment, she forgot everything but the fact that Mary Louise, her dear little friend, was being united to her Danny in the holy bonds of matrimony in sickness and in health until death would them part.
Of course, the servants came out to the side of the house to see their little mistress married. Even the caterers who had begun to swarm in and out of the place left their work and joined the house servants. Mary Louise was a favorite with everybody and this was not the first time those caterers had been called to Colonel Hathaway’s to serve, for the old gentleman was a famous entertainer and many had been the parties given by him to his granddaughter. The great house was empty. Everybody was in the garden thrilled by the beautiful and picturesque sight of the wedding.
As the procession came through the yew hedge a small automobile truck was driven up the alley. It stopped at the Hathaways’ back gate and two men got out, each one with a trunk slung over his back. Quietly they made their way through the deserted kitchen and butler’s pantry and into the small room where the presents were on display. They closed the doors to this room and then with remarkable dispatch proceeded to pack the presents in the trunks filled with excelsior, first the silver which they took from the cases, thereby economizing space, and then the cut glass wrapped in the fine linen and tapestries and packed between the folds of the rugs. Such clever packers were never seen. They seemed to have an instinct for fitting an article in a space. The trunks were filled in a twinkling and then the men carried them out one at a time, and quietly and easily lifted them into the truck. Just as the minister pronounced Danny and Mary Louise man and wife and warned the guests that whom God had united let no man put asunder, the truck started up the alley.
“Well, we got off there all safe,” laughed one of the men. “I must say you are the cleverest ever. Of course, you have your wife to help you plan a thing like this.” The man who was thus blessed was no other than Felix Markle, who seemed to have shaken off his headache remarkably quickly and have got to the Hathaways in time for the ceremony after all.
“Yes, she is a wonder. I’d like to know if the others got the things from the Wrights. I hope they didn’t fill up with useless plunder. The Wrights are off to the beach tomorrow and they won’t know a thing about their treasures being lifted until they come back in the fall. There they are!”
The truck was met at the corner by one similar also carrying trunks and run by two men.
“All safe?” called Markle.
“As easy as shootin’!” was the answer. “Not a soul around and back windows all unlatched. We found the silver on top the wardrobe and brought along all the books you named to us. We picked up some rugs too, all nicely packed in moth balls and two fur coats.”
“Well, we’d best be off now. You have the address all right, eh? Mark your tag clearly and bring me your check tomorrow at my office. Good boys!”
The trucks then separated, the one Markle was in making at a goodly speed for a small town about fifteen miles from Dorfield, the other one going to the Dorfield station.
Josie, whose eye was ever on Hortense, noticed the woman was a little distrait at the close of the ceremony. Just as the benediction was pronounced instead of casting down her eyes she seemed unable to keep her eyes from the back of the garden, even stooping a little to peer through a gap in the hedge. What could she be interested in?
Congratulations in order! Everybody kissing the bride and shaking hands with the bridegroom, some of them even kissing him. Josie slipped through the crowd and whispered something to Bob Dulaney.
“A truck you say drove up during the ceremony?”
“Yes, and it is off now, but we can keep up with it. The chief is having all the stations watched. Have you your disguise?”
“Sure! And you?”
“Mine is in my pocket, so come along.”
CHAPTER XX
THE RIDE TO SOMERVILLE
They made their way to the garage, where there was a motorcycle with a side car attached. Josie darted behind the Colonel’s big touring car and in a moment came out as good a little boy as one could wish. She had simply stepped out of her dress, having the boy’s clothes on underneath. Then she put on a pair of big automobile goggles and, pulling a cap down over her sandy hair, made the disguise perfect. Bob put on over his wedding garment a black alpaca dress of goodly proportions, since he was a broad shouldered, powerful youth. Across his manly bosom he folded a spotless white kerchief and under his chin he tied the strings of a huge black satin quilted sunbonnet, first fitting over his smooth brown head a wig composed of many water waves, the kind beloved by a certain type of female.
“All right but your shoes and they are awful,” complained Josie. “I thought you would forget them and brought these. Father always said your feet would give you away quicker than anything else.” Josie produced from the side car a huge pair of list slippers which Bob was loath to put on but which he did, knowing the girl was right. The patent leathers he had on were hardly in keeping with the bombazine dress and the quilted satin bonnet. He surveyed himself with interest, twisting to see his back.
“Put your shoes and hat in your grip, Auntie, and then we are off.” She handed the young man a lumpy, bumpy grip known as a telescope. He climbed into the side car, Josie mounted the motorcycle and in a jiffy they were off, making the usual splutteration of those noisy modes of locomotion.
“The chief is to attend to the station at Dorfield and we are to follow the truck, which is more than likely going over to Somerville. If it goes beyond there we will go beyond also. Of course, you realize the reason we don’t nab the fellows right now is that we are anxious to get the whole bunch and if we can keep up with where these trunks are to be sent we can more than likely get many more of the gang in our net,” explained Josie, putting on more speed as she saw the rear end of a truck making for the open road on the way to Somerville.
“Now I am to hang around and find out where Markle ships the trunks and then I am to find out what the number of the checks is and report to the chief. Is that it?”
“Exactly! You are such a fussy old lady and so full of curiosity, Auntie.”
“Are you going to let the trunks go off?” asked Auntie anxiously.
“We may have to. Then the persons who apply for them at the other end will be nabbed. Of course, Markle will buy tickets and check the trunks and mail the checks to his confederates. More than likely, he will not get on the train himself but just pretend he is going to. I fancy poor old Markle will wish he had taken the train to-night. He may be near the end of his rope. I can’t help feeling kind of sorry for the poor devil.” Josie sighed a little. “Father always felt sorry for the criminals. One can’t help it. He used to say they had just as much feeling as we had and because they had gone wrong did not alter the fact that they had been cunning little babies once and their mothers had no doubt loved them. Perhaps they loved them so much they did not spank them enough and that is the reason they turned out so badly.”
Bob laughed in a voice not at all suitable for a respectable auntie and was admonished by her critical nephew. They soon caught up with the truck and kept a few hundred feet behind them.
“What is that coming up behind us?” Markle asked his companion.
“Nothing but one of those Indians with a side car carrying an old woman and a little boy. I tell you we made a safe getaway and these trunks will be on the Eastern express bound for the metropolis before the wedding guests have sat down to their paté de fois gras.”
It went off quite as Josie had planned. Markle, quietly and in a businesslike manner, bought two tickets to New York as soon as he reached the bustling little station at Somerville, after lifting out the heavy trunks. Josie and her fictitious auntie were near him and heard him ask for the tickets and demand checks for his baggage.
“I’ll get your tickets, Auntie, while you go ’round to the baggage room and see if your trunk has come,” suggested Josie in an audible tone and a manner of a small nephew who was more or less wearied by his female relatives. “But maybe I’d better not buy your ticket until you see whether it is there or not, ’cause I know you won’t get on the train without it. You women won’t go on trips without your duds.”
Bob flounced off with all the dignity he could muster, managing his bombazine with surprising grace. Markle and his companion paid no attention whatsoever to the boy and the old woman, but went on to the baggage room, where they personally superintended putting the checks on their trunks. It took but a moment for Auntie to poke around the piled up trunks in her diligent search for her own dream luggage and take the numbers of the checks.
“Can’t you find it?” asked Josie. “They promised to get it here in time. I don’t see why you don’t go on without it.” But Auntie decided she would wait until the next train. Her decision was made in a husky whine that astonished Josie, for it sounded so exactly like that of a peevish old woman.
Josie watched Markle from the corner of her begoggled eyes. He took from his pocket a stamped, addressed envelope and carefully placed therein the trunk checks; then he sealed it and dropped it in the mail box on the platform. Josie noted a special delivery stamp on it.
“See that those two trunks go on this express,” he said to the baggage master, who was busy sorting luggage for the train that was due in ten minutes. “I will take the next train myself but a drummer likes to find his wares waiting for him at his destination instead of having to wait for them. They are fairly heavy trunks—would you like a lift?” He was handing out good cigars as he spoke, one to the baggage master and one to the porter, whom he tipped generously. “Have another,” he said to the baggage master, taking out several more cigars. The men moved with alacrity, pulling out the two heavy trunks first, determined that the generous donor of cigars and tips should be well served.
“Now we’ll be going,” Markle said to his companion.
Josie darted into the one telephone booth the small station boasted and quickly had Chief Lonsdale on the wire. The chief had been unable to attend the wedding because of this business.
“Chief, this is O’Gorman! Markle and his pal are just leaving Somerville. The trunks are filled with loot from the wedding. We have the check numbers. Trunks are checked to go on this outgoing express to New York. I’ll stop them, of course.”
“Certainly, O’Gorman!”
“Are the men ready to seize Markle before he gets back into Dorfield?”
“All ready!”
“Are they using my plan?”
“Sure! Didn’t I tell you this was your case?”
“Good by, then! Will see you later.”
The truck with Markle and his companion was moving off when Josie finished telephoning. She ran breathless into the baggage room and accosted the man in charge:
“Say, you know that gentleman who left two trunks here to be sent by this train—he says not to send them yet. He believes he will have them go when he goes. You know the ones—booked for New York—No. 82-6573 and 82-6574. Here they are on the platform.”
“All right, Bo! I’ll cart them back in the baggage room,” agreed the baggage master. He patted the cigars in his vest pocket as much as to say that the gentleman deserved anything at his hands.
Auntie was already comfortably ensconced in the side car keeping her eye on the disappearing truck. Josie jumped into the saddle and they started off.
“There is liable to be something doing pretty soon,” Josie confided to Bob. “Would you rather meet it as my aunt or get back into your own character?”
“You mean a rumpus on the road?”
“Yes! Chief Lonsdale has sent out a force to stop the gentlemen of the road.”
“Which character would be the most useful for me to assume?” laughed Bob.
“Well, as a fussy old woman you might astonish them somewhat with your superior strength if that was needed.”
“Then a fussy old woman I shall remain.”
The road between Dorfield and Somerville was smooth and well kept, except for a piece of about one hundred yards midway between the towns. This stretch of road had caused some bad feeling between the citizens of the rival towns, each side declaring it was up to the other to put in repair. It was a low lying bit of country with a small creek winding through it. At times this creek went on a rampage and inundated the road and when it returned to its channel it always left a sticky gummy road bed, the terror of automobilists.
It was an impossible place for two cars to pass and, if they should meet, it was necessary for one of the cars to back out and give the other right of way. This, of course, was the spot chosen by Josie as the proper place to stop Markle and his companion. When she came puffing up with her auntie she found her plans being put to the test. The truck had been stopped by a shabby Ford that seemed to have come to grief. The four men who had been traveling in it had alighted and were aimlessly poking at the machinery. The accident had occurred just around the bend and the truck had come upon them unaware of its being there.
“What’s the matter?” called Markle impatiently. “Can’t you give me room to pass?”
“Can’t budge her,” responded the chauffeur dully. “She’s got some mysterious ailment that I can’t fathom, but I ain’t much of a hand at a car anyhow. Ain’t been running one for long. If I could get her started I’d back out for you, mister, seeing as you should have the right of way, being as you are further in this here swamp than me.”
“I’ll get out,” Markle said to his companion, “and find out what ails them and let them back out. It won’t do for us to lose too much time.”
It was plain to see that he was nervous and impatient, but he held on to himself with wonderful control. The men let him get to the car and look it over.
“Out of gas!” he said with disgust. “Bring over that can and let us fill her up,” he called to his companion. Under the seat of the truck was a five-gallon can of gasoline. Nobody could ever place Felix Markle in the category of the foolish virgins. He never found himself out of oil. The man obeyed and just as he started to open the can Josie and her auntie arrived on the scene.
CHAPTER XXI
THE SURPRISING STRENGTH OF AUNTIE
At a signal from Josie, Markle and his companion were grabbed from behind. The handcuffs were on the companion in a twinkling but with tiger-like agility and strength Markle slipped from the grasp of the detectives. Without a moment’s delay he sprang to the motorcycle, seized Josie by the collar, pulled her from the saddle and hurled her into the bushes by the wayside. He was in the seat and had the machine started before his would-be captors could catch their breath.
“That’s what I get for trusting those stupid men,” muttered Josie as she picked up her bruised and scratched little body from the blackberry bushes where Markle had so ignominiously thrown her. “Thank God for Auntie!” she devoutly added.
And now began one of the most exciting contests ever beheld. Markle, of course ignorant of who the passenger was in the side car and determined to get rid of her at any cost, said:
“Now old woman, I don’t want to kill you, but I will unless you do exactly what I say. When we get a mile further on I am going to stop this infernal machine and you are going to get quietly out. Do you understand?”
The supposed old woman nodded. She began, however, to unbutton the large white cotton gloves confining her muscular hands and unknotted the bonnet ribbon tied under her chin. She moved her shoulders back and forth in the bombazine gown, making sure there was plenty of room to give them free play.
Bob Dulaney had been conceded by his regiment in the A. E. F. to be the best wrestler among them. He had strength and agility and science. He had never had to use his powers handicapped in a woman’s dress and kerchief with a stiff sunbonnet but, in spite of the confining clothes and the powerful build of Markle, he felt quite confident that he could master him. He was conscious of his muscles rippling under his feminine garb and as he drew off his gloves he gloried in the strength of his great hands. Should he wait until Markle stopped the car or would it be better to grapple with him immediately? Of course, an immediate grapple would mean the detectives in the temporarily disabled Ford would come to his assistance. The sporting blood in Bob’s veins rebelled at this thought. He did not want any assistance. He preferred to have the fight out single handed. He glanced at Markle. A handsome fellow with a well set head and fine square jaw. His close cropped iron-grey hair gave a touch of dignity to his appearance.
“Such a pity! Such a pity!” Bob thought. “Talent gone wrong, just as little Josie said!” but he patted the handcuffs which Josie had placed in the old lady’s reticule.
“Here’s where you get off!” said Markle, stopping his Indian. “Step lively, old woman! I’ve no time to lose.”
The old woman reached out and grasping Markle around the middle she lifted him from the saddle. For the first time in his eventful career of systematized crime, Felix Markle was taken completely by surprise. Knowing the ups and downs of his profession, he was ever ready for an attack, but this bunchy old woman who had so meekly submitted to being carried off had given him a shock. If she was not what she seemed, why had she let him get away from the plain clothes men who might have rendered assistance in the way of ready revolvers and handcuffs. All this flashed through his mind as he struggled in the bear hug of the mysterious female.
Markle was even stronger and more agile than Bob had thought him to be. In spite of the hold he had on him from the back he wriggled around and grappled with his foe. Back and forth they fought each one trying to get the death grip on the other. The bombazine skirt was more of a handicap than Bob had thought it would be. He had not realized before how necessary his legs were in a fight. Strange to say the voluminous skirts also got in Markle’s way and finally managed to trip him up. They rolled in the dirt. With a great wrench Bob managed to pull up the offending skirt and with all the strength and science he could command caught the infuriated Markle in the death-like vise known as the body scissors. In this grip, the opponent is held between the legs of one who has obtained this advantage and by the play of the thigh muscles the breath is slowly squeezed out.
As Markle’s head drooped Bob drew the handcuffs from his bedraggled reticule and snapped them on his wrists. With his kerchief, no longer snowy, he bound his ankles together.
“There, poor fellow, I fancy you would have been happier if I had not let up when I did but had squeezed all the breath out of you,” Bob panted.
The chug of the rejuvenated Ford was now heard and, after it, the rumble of the truck. The Ford was breaking the speed limits in its endeavor to come up with the Indian and its side car. Josie was wild with impatience. It was all she could do to keep from slapping the stupid detective who had let their quarry escape.
“It is what I get for trusting them,” she kept on saying to herself. “I could have snapped the handcuffs on myself without using any force. And now, poor Bob Dulaney may be killed or almost worse than killed, Markle escaping and no scoop after all to speak of.”
The fight that had seemed to Bob Dulaney to last hours had in reality only taken a few minutes, only long enough for the gasoline to be put in the tank and the car to be backed out of the miry road, turned around and started.
They found Bob sitting on the roadside by his captive burglar. He was still in the bombazine gown but his wig and bonnet were gone. He had found the pockets of his trousers under his skirts and had produced therefrom cigarettes and matches and was contentedly smoking.
“Hurrah for Auntie!” cried Josie when she took in the situation as the car slowed down. Tears of joy were in her eyes but a little lump of sympathy in her throat. They lifted Markle into the truck. Life was slowly coming back to him. He opened his eyes for a moment and then closed them wearily. He murmured something but only Josie caught the meaning of his whisper:
“Pet, poor little Pet!”
It was an easy matter to round up the gang of thieves when once the master mind was not allowed to direct them. Markle was confined in jail, there to await his trial. The holder of checks Nos. 82-6573 and 82-6574 when he applied at the New York baggage room was followed and trapped and with him many others.
The books of Simpkins & Markle were inspected and, through them, the furnished apartments were located and the stolen goods restored to their owners. Poor Simpkins had learned a lesson not to shut his eyes and get rich too quick. He was let off—having convinced the jury that he was not dishonest—but merely stupid.
But to return to the wedding breakfast and the fortunes of Mary Louise: Everything went off as it should have and the theft of the presents was not discovered until the bride and groom were off on their honeymoon and then Chief Lonsdale had the trunks brought from Somerville and, so carefully had the things been packed by the experts, that not even one piece of cut glass had been broken. The trunkful of things purloined from the Wrights had also been held at the station and was returned intact. Of course Elizabeth was blamed by her family when the whole thing came out for having introduced them to such people but Elizabeth only smiled, being very happy way down deep in her heart that Billy McGraw was saved from the wiles of the beautiful Hortense.
The beautiful Hortense simply faded out of sight. By some occult means she must have known of the pursuit of her husband and the vigilance of the police in regard to herself. It may have been through a confederate employed by the caterers who perhaps saw Josie and Bob speeding away on the motorcycle. At any rate, she did not return to her apartment, but as soon as the ceremony was over, she excused herself to Mary Louise, regretting exceedingly not being able to be present during the breakfast and sit at the bride’s table, but her poor Felix was so miserable she must go to him. She tripped down the terrace and as has been said, simply faded out of sight. The detectives who had been set by the astute chief to guard the apartment and to arrest her when she made her appearance had a long and unfruitful vigil. It seemed strange that a beautiful woman dressed so strikingly in pale grey over iridescent silk could in a town no bigger than Dorfield escape the notice of everyone and disappear.
Bob Dulaney got, as he expressed it, “the scoop of his life.” He was able to get his story in one of the big New York papers before the A. P. got on to it, thereby reaping a reward in reputation as well as money. The whole country rang with the daring scheme practiced by the gang of thieves and Chief Lonsdale and his force received compliments from every city. Josie asked not to be put in the papers as the one who had really done the work.
“It isn’t newspaper notoriety I want,” she explained. “My father never wanted that kind of credit. He just wanted to have the consciousness that he had delivered the goods and to be sure he had the respect of the profession. If it gets out I was active in this, I might lose my chance to nab others by being the insignificant little person I appear. It’s better for me to go on keeping the Higgledy-Piggledy Shop with Elizabeth. I can learn all kinds of things that I’d miss if I were known to be a real detective. I am here if you need me,” she said to Chief Lonsdale, and he smiled at her.
“How like your father you are, child!”
Markle had one consolation while he was in prison awaiting his trial: he had the notebook which had belonged to Detective O’Gorman which he had not yet been able to decipher. The long hours of solitary prison life gave him the opportunity to put his whole mind on it and at last he felt sure he had mastered the cipher. With painstaking care he translated the first page. Then he sat and looked at it with an expression on his handsome face that beggared description. After all he had been fighting Fate and trying to escape his own sin. And this is what he had translated:
“I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;
I fled Him, down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind; and in the midst of tears
I hide from Him, and under running laughter,
Up vistaed hopes I sped;
And shot, precipitated
Adown Titanic glooms of chasmèd fears,
From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.
But with unhurrying chase,
And unperturbed pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
They beat—and a Voice beat
More instant than the Feet—
‘All things betray thee, who betrayest Me.’”
THE END.
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