angry, and became sheepish.
It was Stuart, our confidential clerk for the last half dozen years!
McKnight sat up and wiped his eyes.
“Stuart,” he said sternly, “there are two very serious things we have learned about you. First, you jab your scarf pins into your cushion with your left hand, which is most reprehensible; second, you wear - er - night-shirts, instead of pajamas. Worse than that, perhaps, we find that one of them has a buttonhole torn out at the neck.”
Stuart was bewildered. He looked from McKnight to me, and then at the crestfallen Hotchkiss.
“I haven’t any idea what it’s all about,” he said. “I was arrested as I reached my boarding-house to-night, after the theater, and brought directly here. I told the officer it was a mistake.”
Poor Hotchkiss tried bravely to justify the fiasco. “You can not deny,” he contended, “that Mr. Andrew Bronson followed you to your rooms last Monday evening.”
Stuart looked at us and flushed.
“No, I don’t deny it,” he said, “but there was nothing criminal about it, on my part, at least. Mr. Bronson has been trying to induce me to secure the forged notes for him. But I did not even know where they were.”
“And you were not on the wrecked Washington Flier?” persisted Hotchkiss. But McKnight interfered.
“There is no use trying to put the other man’s identity on Stuart, Mr. Hotchkiss,” he protested. “He has been our confidential clerk for six years, and has not been away from the office a day for a year. I am afraid that the beautiful fabric we have pieced out of all these scraps is going to be a crazy quilt.” His tone was facetious, but I could detect the undercurrent of real disappointment.
I paid the constable for his trouble, and he departed. Stuart, still indignant, left to go back to Washington Circle. He shook hands with McKnight and myself magnanimously, but he hurled a look of utter hatred at Hotchkiss, sunk crestfallen in his chair.
“As far as I can see,” said McKnight dryly, “we’re exactly as far along as we were the day we met at the Carter place. We’re not a step nearer to finding our man.”
“We have one thing that may be of value,” I suggested. “He is the husband of a bronze-haired woman at Van Kirk’s hospital, and it is just possible we may trace him through her. I hope we are not going to lose your valuable co-operation, Mr. Hotchkiss?” I asked.
He roused at that to feeble interest, “I - oh, of course not, if you still care to have me, I - I was wondering about - the man who just went out, Stuart, you say? I - told his landlady to-night that he wouldn’t need the room again. I hope she hasn’t rented it to somebody else.”
We cheered him as best we could, and I suggested that we go to Baltimore the next day and try to find the real Sullivan through his wife. He left sometime after midnight, and Richey and I were alone.
He drew a chair near the lamp and lighted a cigarette, and for a time we were silent. I was in the shadow, and I sat back and watched him. It was not surprising, I thought, that she cared for him: women had always loved him, perhaps because he always loved them. There was no disloyalty in the thought: it was the lad’s nature to give and crave affection. Only - I was different. I had never really cared about a girl before, and my life had been singularly loveless. I had fought a lonely battle always. Once before, in college, we had both laid ourselves and our callow devotions at the feet of the same girl. Her name was Dorothy - I had forgotten the rest - but I remembered the sequel. In a spirit of quixotic youth I had relinquished my claim in favor of Richey and had gone cheerfully on my way, elevated by my heroic sacrifice to a somber, white-hot martyrdom. As is often the case, McKnight’s first words showed our parallel lines of thought.
“I say, Lollie,” he asked, “do you remember Dorothy Browne?” Browne, that was it!
“Dorothy Browne?” I repeated. “Oh - why yes, I recall her now. Why?”
“Nothing,” he said. “I was thinking about her. That’s all. You remember you were crazy about her, and dropped back because she preferred me.”
“I got out,” I said with dignity, “because you declared you would shoot yourself if she didn’t go with you to something or other!”
“Oh, why yes, I recall now!” he mimicked. He tossed his cigarette in the general direction of the hearth and got up. We were both a little conscious, and he stood with his back to me, fingering a Japanese vase on the mantel.
“I was thinking,” he began, turning the vase around, “that, if you feel pretty well again, and - and ready to take hold, that I should like to go away for a week or so. Things are fairly well cleaned up at the office.”
“Do you mean - you are going to Richmond?” I asked, after a scarcely perceptible pause. He turned and faced me, with his hands thrust in his pockets.
“No. That’s off, Lollie. The Sieberts are going for a week’s cruise along the coast. I - the hot weather has played hob with me and the cruise means seven days’ breeze and bridge.”
I lighted a cigarette and offered him the box, but he refused. He was looking haggard and suddenly tired. I could not think of anything to say, and neither could he, evidently. The matter between us lay too deep for speech.
“How’s Candida?” he asked.
“Martin says a month, and she will be all right,” I returned, in the same tone. He picked up his hat, but he had something more to say. He blurted it out, finally, half way to the door.
“The Seiberts are not going for a couple of days,” he said, “and if you want a day or so off to go down to Richmond yourself - ”
“Perhaps I shall,” I returned, as indifferently as I could. “Not going yet, are you?”
“Yes. It is late.” He drew in his breath as if he had something more to say, but the impulse passed. “Well, good night,” he said from the doorway.
“Good night, old man.”
