“Three dollars a week, including his washing.”
“Very well,” I said. “Now,
Mrs. Tate, I am going to pay last week’s board
and a week in advance. If the mother comes, she
is to know nothing of this visit—absolutely
not a word, and, in return for your silence, you may
use this money for—something for your own
children.”
Her tired, faded face lighted up, and I saw her glance
at the little Tates’ small feet. Shoes,
I divined—the feet of the genteel poor
being almost as expensive as their stomachs.
As we went back Mr. Jamieson made only one remark:
I think he was laboring under the weight of a great
disappointment.
“Is King’s a children’s outfitting
place?” he asked.
“Not especially. It is a general department
store.”
He was silent after that, but he went to the telephone
as soon as we got home, and called up King and Company,
in the city.
After a time he got the general manager, and they
talked for some time. When Mr. Jamieson hung
up the receiver he turned to me.
“The plot thickens,” he said with his
ready smile. “There are four women named
Wallace at King’s none of them married, and none
over twenty. I think I shall go up to the city
to-night. I want to go to the Children’s
Hospital. But before I go, Miss Innes, I wish
you would be more frank with me than you have been
yet. I want you to show me the revolver you picked
up in the tulip bed.”
So he had known all along!
“It was a revolver, Mr. Jamieson,”
I admitted, cornered at last, “but I can not
show it to you. It is not in my possession.”
A LADDER OUT OF PLACE
At dinner Mr. Jamieson suggested sending a man out
in his place for a couple of days, but Halsey was
certain there would be nothing more, and felt that
he and Alex could manage the situation. The
detective went back to town early in the evening,
and by nine o’clock Halsey, who had been playing
golf—as a man does anything to take his
mind away from trouble—was sleeping soundly
on the big leather davenport in the living-room.
I sat and knitted, pretending not to notice when Gertrude
got up and wandered out into the starlight.
As soon as I was satisfied that she had gone, however,
I went out cautiously. I had no intention of
eavesdropping, but I wanted to be certain that it
was Jack Bailey she was meeting. Too many things
had occurred in which Gertrude was, or appeared to
be, involved, to allow anything to be left in question.
I went slowly across the lawn, skirted the hedge to
a break not far from the lodge, and found myself on
the open road. Perhaps a hundred feet to the
left the path led across the valley to the Country
Club, and only a little way off was the foot-bridge
over Casanova Creek. But just as I was about
to turn down the path I heard steps coming toward
me, and I shrank into the bushes. It was Gertrude,
going back quickly toward the house.
