“When she wakens again, give her broth, for I fear she is too nearly starved to take heavier food just now.”
CHAPTER XX
A FAILURE THAT WAS SUCCESS
The day following that on which Gwen had been found, Detective Bobs had gone early in the morning to report at the Fourth Avenue Branch of the Burns Agency.
“Mr. Jewett,” she began at once, “as a detective I certainly am a failure.”
The young man laughed. “I’ll agree with you that in one way, you certainly are, but nevertheless you accomplished your mission.”
Bobs’ expression of blank surprise seemed to delight her employer. “But, Mr. Jewett, what can you mean? It was my sister whom I found. I did not find Miss Winston-Waring.”
“Yes you did, and you talked with her, or to her, rather.”
“Well, I’ll be flabbergasted!” Then Bobs apologized. “Pardon my lingo, Mr. Jewett. Our gardener’s boy used to say that when he was greatly astonished, and I certainly never was more so. When, in the name of mystery, did I talk to that young lady, and where?”
“It was at the first theater that you visited. Miss Winifred said that you came into the dressing room and that after two of the girls, called Pink and Bee, had talked with you awhile, you turned to her, for her mirror was nearest you, and asked her directly if she liked the life of a chorus girl. She did not know how to reply, for the truth was that her three days’ experience on the stage had greatly disillusioned her. She had found the rough ways of the girls repellent to her refined, sensitive nature, and she was afraid of the stage manager, whose criticisms were sarcastic and even unkind.
“While she was hesitating, Bee, it seems, had replied for her, and then it was that you had explained your mission. She, of course, had not given her real name, and so no one suspected that she was Miss Winifred Waring-Winston.
“Her pride alone kept her from following you and confessing her identity. She had declared to her mother that she would live her own life in her own way, and she could not bear to acknowledge her defeat. Too, there was one bright spot in her new profession, which was that the star, Miss Merryheart, had singled her out and was very kind to her.
“That same afternoon, it seems, after the matinee,” Mr. Jewett continued, “Miss Merryheart sent for her to come to her dressing room. The others were jealous and said things that were so unkind and untrue that the sensitive girl was almost in tears when she reached the room of the star.
“When the door had been closed and they were alone, Miss Merryheart placed kindly hands on her shoulders and looked deep into the tear-brimmed eyes. ‘Dear little girl,’ she said, ‘why didn’t you tell our visitor that you are Winifred Waring-Winston?’”
Of course the girl was amazed and greatly puzzled, for she had told Miss Merryheart nothing at all concerning her past or her identity, and so she asked her how she had known.
“The star replied: ‘I have been long on the stage and I know when a girl has been brought up in an environment different from the others. Too, I saw last night that you were greatly disillusioned, and I realized by the frightened, anxious glances that you cast about the audience that you feared someone might be there who would recognize you in spite of your disguise, and when our visitor today told me that in this city there was a home made desolate, a mother heart breaking because a little girl had run away to go on the stage, why shouldn’t I guess that you are the one?’
“Then she added: ‘Tell me your telephone number, dear.’
“And that,” Mr. Jewett concluded, “is how it chanced that an hour later Winifred was restored to the arms of her mother, who at once canceled her passage for Europe, as a year abroad would not be needed to disillusion the little would-be actress.”
“That wonderful Miss Merryheart!” Bobs said irrelevantly, “I love her and I want to know her better.”
Mr. Jewett smiled, “Miss Vandergrift, as you say, you are not exactly a successful detective, and yet, in both of the cases on which you have been engaged you have accomplished what might be called indirect success. For, even though you did help him to escape, you discovered the thief of the rare old book, and you have been instrumental in restoring a lost girl to her mother. Now, I have another case and one quite different for you. Do you wish to take it?”
Bobs laughed. “Mr. Jewett,” she said, “like Winnie, I fear that I, too, am disillusioned. I find that a detective is not allowed to have sympathy. Honestly, if my life had depended upon it, I couldn’t have turned that old man over to justice; but what is the new case?”
Roberta could not believe that she was hearing aright when he told her.
“Mr. Jewett,” she exclaimed, “will you kindly say that over again?”
The young man was finding his new assistant refreshingly different.
“I merely stated that I would like you to help us find the heir to the Pensinger Mansion, who—” he paused and snapped his fingers. “I declare,” he ejaculated, “I had quite forgotten for the moment that is your present home. All the better, for there may be some important evidence right on the premises. Come into my office and I will read all the data that we have filed up to the present.”
Very much interested, Roberta followed the young man, wondering what she was to hear.
When they were seated, Mr. Jewett said: “Perhaps you know something of the story of the Pensinger family?”
Roberta replied that she did; that a neighbor, Miss Selenski, had told about the lost daughter, Marilyn, and about her father’s strange will.
“There is little more known by anyone,” Mr. Jewett said. “Judge Caldwaller-Cory, whose father was Mr. Pensinger’s legal advisor and close friend, is very eager to find the heir before it is too late. Not many years remain before the property, according to the will, is to be sold, the money to be devoted to charity. Judge Cory declares that it haunts him, sometimes, as the old house is supposed to be haunted. He feels sure that Marilyn is not living, but she might have children, somewhere, who are in need. The judge never accepted the theory which some held, that the beautiful girl leaped into the East River on the night that her shawl was found on the bank. He believes that she was secretly married and that, with her lover-husband, she departed for his home country, Hungary.” Roberta nodded. “O, I do hope so!” she exclaimed so eagerly that Mr. Jewett smiled. But what he said was: “And so now, once again, the case is to be reopened, and, as the judge himself is very busy, he has turned the matter over to his son, who has recently become junior member of his father’s firm. Ralph Caldwaller-Cory is young and filled with fresh enthusiasms, and it is his wish that we put on the case a girl of about the age that Marilyn was at the time, if we have one in our employ. Since you had not notified me that you had ceased to be one of us, I told him that I would procure just the type of person whom I believed best fitted to assist us. Are you willing to undertake this case, Miss Vandergrift?”
Bobs smiled when she heard the name. “Gladly,” she said, rising, “and this time I hope I will not do little.”
CHAPTER XXI
A NEW ARRIVAL
When Roberta reached home that day, she began to sniff, for the house seemed to be pervaded with a most delicious aroma.
“Ohee, fried chicken, if I guess aright!” she thought. The front room being vacant, she skipped down the long, wide hall and pounced into the sunny combination kitchen and dining-room. Lena May smiled over her shoulder to greet the newcomer. She was busy at the stove preparing the noon meal. Gwendolyn, made comfortable on a pillowed reclining chair, was lying in the sunshine near the blossoming window-box. She also smiled, though she was too weak and weary to speak. Bobs kissed her tenderly and then inquired: “Say, Lena May, why all this festiveness? It isn’t anyone’s birthday, is it?”
“You know it isn’t,” their youngest replied as she stopped to open the oven door, revealing a tin of biscuits that were browning within. Then, rising, she added: “But, nevertheless, we are celebrating. You see, Nurse Kathryn ordered chicken broth for
Gwen and, having made that, I decided to fry the remaining pieces because we are going to have company for lunch.”
“Who, pray?” Bobs was removing her hat and coat as she spoke. Just then Gloria came in from the Settlement House and she inquired as she glanced about: “Hasn’t the company come?”
“Not yet.” Lena May looked at the old grandfather clock. “It lacks two minutes of being noon. They will be here promptly at twelve.”
“I do believe that you are all trying to arouse my curiosity,” Bobs said. “Well, the deed is done, so fire ahead and tell me who is to be the victim?”
“Victim, indeed.” Lena May tossed her curly head with pretended indignation. “I have nine minds not to give you a single piece of this delicious fried chicken because of that—that—”
Bobs helped her out. “Slam on, your cooking is what you really mean, but of course you can’t use slang, not even in a pinch. But, I say, is our honored guest fine or superfine?”
Gloria and Lena May exchanged amused glances. It was the former who replied: “The guest of honor is to be a young gentleman, and, as to his identity, you may have three guesses.”
This had always been their method of telling each other interesting news.
“Dick De Laney isn’t in town, is he?” Roberta inquired in so matter-of-fact and little interested a manner that again Gloria realized that her sister did not greatly care for the lad who had loved her since the pinafore days.
“Not that I’ve heard of,” Lena May said. “Now you may guess again.” But before this could be done, the heavy knocker on the front door was announcing the arrival of someone, and Gloria went to answer its summons.
Bobs skipped over to the stove as she said hurriedly, “Tell me quickly who is coming, so that I may be prepared.”
“Nell Wiggin and her brother Dean,” was the whispered reply. “He came in on the eleven-ten train. Nell went to meet him and I told her to bring him over here to lunch. I thought it would be pleasant for both of them.”
“You’re a trump,” Bobs began, but paused, for Gloria was opening the door, saying, “Sisters, here are Nell and her brother Dean.” Then to the tall, pale lad with the dreamy eyes she added: “This sister is Gwendolyn, who has been ill, and this is Lena May, fork in hand, symbolizing the fact that she is also our housekeeper. Roberta we call Bobs, for every family has need of a boy and Bobsy has always done her best to fill the requirements.”
The lad, unused to girls, acknowledged these introductions rather shyly. Bobs, knowing that he was conscious of his muscle-bound left arm, which he could not move, said at once in her merry, nonsensical manner: “If so many sisters won’t frighten you, Dean, I’ll retire from the role of brother and let you fill it.” Then she added, “I’m not going to call you Mr. Wiggin. It is too formal.”
The lad flushed in his effort to reply, but Lena May saved him from further embarrassment by saying, “Nell, you and your brother may sit on either side of Gloria. Bobsy, will you serve the chicken? Gwen had her broth at eleven, so she isn’t hungry just now.”
Realizing that the lad who had lived only on remote New England farms would rather listen than talk, Bobs monopolized the conversation in her usual breezy manner, and often when she glanced his way she noted that the soft brown eyes of the lad were smiling as though he were much amused. But after lunch she spoke to him directly. “Dean,” she said, “your sister tells me that you love books.”
“Indeed I do,” the boy replied, “but I have seen very few and have owned only one.”
“My goodness!” Bobs exclaimed. “Come with me and I will show you several hundred.”
“Several hundred books,” the lad gasped, quite forgetting his self-consciousness in his astonishment at this amazing remark.
Bobs nodded mysteriously as she led the way to the room overhead, where in the dim light Dean beheld old books in dusty piles everywhere about.
There was a sudden glow of pleasure in the eyes of the boy which told Bobs that he was indeed a booklover. “What a treat this will be,” he exclaimed, “if I may browse up here when I wish.” Then he added as a new thought presented itself: “But, Miss Roberta, I must not spend my time in idle reading. I want to find some way to earn money.” Eagerly, anxiously, his eyes turned toward her. “Can you suggest anything that I might be able to do?”
For one panicky moment Bobs’ thoughts groped wildly for some profession that a one-armed lad might follow, then she had what she believed was a wonderful inspiration, and she said with her usual head-long impulsiveness: “I do, indeed, know just the very thing. You and I will start an old book shop and you may be manager.”
The lad’s pale face flushed with pleasure. “Do you really mean it, Miss Vandergrift?” he asked eagerly. “How I would like that.”
In her characteristic manner Bobs wanted to settle the matter at once, and so she tripped downstairs with Dean following.
She found that Gwendolyn had gone back to bed and that the kitchen having been tidied, the three girls were sitting about the fireplace talking softly together. When they heard Bobs’ inspiration, they all thought it a splendid plan, and Nell said that there was a vacant room adjoining the office of the model tenement that she had been told she might use in any way that she wished. As there was a door opening upon the street, she believed it would be an ideal place for an old book shop.
Rising, Nell continued: “I will telephone Mrs. Doran-Ashley at once to be sure that she is still willing that I use the room as I desire.”
This was done, and that most kindly woman in her beautiful home on Riverside Drive listened with interest to the plan and gave the permission that was requested. Moreover, upon leaving the telephone she made a note in her engagement book: “At the next board meeting suggest that a visit be made to the old book shop in the model tenement.”
When Nell returned with the information that they might do as they wished with the room, Bobs and Dean went at once to a lumber yard near the docks and ordered the shelves they would need. An hour later Antovich and several of his boy companions had carried the old books from the Pensinger mansion and had heaped them upon the floor of the pleasant vacant room, which opened directly upon the sidewalk on Seventy-eighth Street.
When Bobs left, Dean was busy with hammer and nails and happier, perhaps, than he had been in the twenty years of his life.
CHAPTER XXII
A CASE FOR TWO
As Bobs left the small shop, she glanced at her watch, and finding that it was nearly four, she hastened her steps, recalling that that was the hour when she might expect a call from the young lawyer. As she turned the corner at the East River, she saw a small, smart-looking auto drawing up at the curb in front of the Pensinger mansion, and from it leaped a fashionably groomed young man. Truly an unusual sight in that part of New York’s East Side, where the clothes, ill-fitting even at best, descended from father to son, often made smaller by merely being haggled off at arm and ankle. No wonder that Ralph Caldwaller-Cory was the object of many an admiring glance from the dark eyes of the young Hungarian women who, with gayly colored shawls over their heads, at that moment were passing on their way to the tobacco factory; but Ralph was quite unconscious of their scrutiny, for, having seen Bobs approaching, he hastened to meet her, hat in hand, his good-looking, clean-shaven face glowing with anticipation.
“Have you found a clue as yet, Miss Vandergrift?” he asked eagerly, when greetings had been exchanged.
Roberta laughed. “No, and I’ll have to confess that I haven’t given the matter a moment’s thought since we parted three hours ago.”
“Is that all it has been? To me it has seemed three centuries.” The boy said this so sincerely that Roberta believed that he must be greatly interested in the Pensinger mystery. It did not enter her remotest thought that he might also be interested in her. Having reached the mansion, Bobs led the way up the wide stone steps, saying: “I do hope Gloria and Lena May are at home. I want my sisters to meet you.”
But no on
e was to be seen. Gwen was still in her room, while the other girls had not returned from the Settlement House.
“Well, there’s another time coming.” Bobs flashed a smile at her companion, then led the way to the wide fireplace, where comfortable chairs awaited them, and they seated themselves facing the still burning embers.
“I say, Miss Vandergrift,” Ralph began, “you’re a girl and you ought to know better than I just what another girl, even though she lived seventy-five years ago, would do under the circumstances with which we are both familiar. If you loved a man, of whom your mother did not approve, would you really drown yourself, or would you marry him and permit your parents to believe that you were dead?”
Bobs sat so long gazing into the fire that the lad, earnestly watching her, wondered at her deep thought.
At last she spoke. “I couldn’t have hurt my mother that way,” she said, and there were tears in the hazel eyes that were lifted to her companion. “I would have known that her dearest desire would be for my ultimate happiness.”
“But mothers are different, we will have to confess,” the lad declared. “Marilyn’s may have thought only of social fitness.” Then, as he glanced about the old salon and up at the huge crystal chandeliers, he added: “I judge that the Pensingers were people of great wealth in those early days and probably leaders in society.”
“I believe that they were,” Roberta agreed, “but my mother had a different standard. She believed that mental and soul companionship should be the big thing in marriage, and for that matter, so do I.”
Ralph felt awed. This was a very different girl from the hoidenish young would-be detective with whom he had so brief an acquaintance.
“Miss Vandergrift,” he said impulsively, “I wish I had a sister like you, and wouldn’t my mother be pleased, though, if you were her daughter. A girl, I am sure, would have been more of a comfort and companion to her when my brother Desmond died.” Then he added, after a moment of silence: “I can get your point of view, all right. I wouldn’t break my mother’s heart by pretending to drown myself, not even if the heavens fell.”
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