“Great! And what’s your mother’s name?”
“Mother, of course. What’s your mother’s name?” And he pointed to me! I am going to stop wearing black: it doubles a woman’s age.
“And where did you live before you came here?” The detective was polite enough not to smile.
“Grossmutter,” he said. And I saw Mr. Jamieson’s eyebrows go up.
“German,” he commented. “Well, young man, you don’t seem to know much about yourself.”
“I’ve tried it all week,” Mrs. Tate broke in. “The boy knows a word or two of German, but he doesn’t know where he lived, or anything about himself.”
Mr. Jamieson wrote something on a card and gave it to her.
“Mrs. Tate,” he said, “I want you to do something. Here is some money for the telephone call. The instant the boy’s mother appears here, call up that number and ask for the person whose name is there. You can run across to the drug-store on an errand and do it quietly. Just say, `The lady has come.’”
“`The lady has come,’” repeated Mrs. Tate. “Very well, sir, and I hope it will be soon. The milk-bill alone is almost double what it was.”
“How much is the child’s board?” I asked.
“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 tonight. 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.”
CHAPTER XXII
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.
I was surprised. I waited until she had had time to get almost to the house before I started. And then I stepped back again into the shadows. The reason why Gertrude had not kept her tryst was evident. Leaning on the parapet of the bridge in the moonlight, and smoking a pipe, was Alex, the gardener. I could have throttled Liddy for her carelessness in reading the torn note where he could hear. And I could cheerfully have choked Alex to death for his audacity.
But there was no help for it: I turned and followed Gertrude slowly back to the house.
The frequent invasions of the house had effectually prevented any relaxation after dusk. We had redoubled our vigilance as to bolts and window-locks but, as Mr. Jamieson had suggested, we allowed the door at the east entry to remain as before, locked by the Yale lock only. To provide only one possible entrance for the invader, and to keep a constant guard in the dark at the foot of the circular staircase, seemed to be the only method.
In the absence of the detective, Alex and Halsey arranged to change off, Halsey to be on duty from ten to two, and Alex from two until six. Each man was armed, and, as an additional precaution, the one off duty slept in a room near the head of the circular staircase and kept his door open, to be ready for emergency.
These arrangements were carefully kept from the servants, who were only commencing to sleep at night, and who retired, one and all, with barred doors and lamps that burned full until morning.
The house was quiet again Wednesday night. It was almost a week since Louise had encountered some one on the stairs, and it was four days since the discovery of the hole in the trunk-room wall.
