That night I went home late, slept, left early; I saw no one in the house. The next day I did the same. It wasn’t until Thursday morning that the Hibbard advertising man stole sheepishly into his office. I stayed until closing time to show him what I’d done and help him get back in step, so I got paid for three whole days.
That was Thursday, June third.
7
THAT WAS THE NIGHT.
Even now, looking back, I get tense when I think of it.
I went straight home from Hibbard’s, cooked dinner, ate.
It must have been around seven o’clock that I opened my door after a gentle knock to see Mr. Grant standing in the hallway blinking.
“I haven’t seen you around these last few days,” he said as mildly as always. “I thought I’d inquire.”
“I’m awfully glad you did. Come in and sit down. I’ve been in luck; I had three days of temporary work again; eighteen fine lovely dollars’ worth.”
“That’s fine. I’m very glad to hear it. Very glad to see you aren’t having more of your—er—experiences.” He cleared his throat, as if now the preliminaries were over. “I have also been wondering a little about Mrs. Garr. Wasn’t she going to come back soon?”
I stared at him with my mouth open.
“Isn’t she back? Why, she was supposed to be back Tuesday morning!”
“I haven’t seen her.” He was as quietly positive as he had been about his statements Friday night.
“Why, that’s right, I haven’t, either. But I’ve been gone until so late—I thought she’d be in her room sleeping.”
“Well, I have been about a good deal in the daytime, and I haven’t seen her.” He said it still mildly, but with interest, too.
“Oh, she must be back. She must be around here somewhere. Have you called her?”
“No, I—not exactly. But I am positive she is not here.”
“Well, we’ll soon find out. I’ll call.”
As Mr. Kistler had on Friday night, I went out into the hall to cry toward her quarters, “Mrs. Garr! Mrs. Garr!”
As on Friday, there was no answer. I went to the head of the basement stairs; the cellar was dark, but I called down there, too.
Again no answer. I went back to Mr. Grant.
“She’s certainly not in the house now. And that’s odd. You wouldn’t expect her to go away again when she had just been gone over the weekend. She may have decided to stay longer in Chicago, of course; we wouldn’t know. But in that case you’d think Mrs. Halloran might—”
I stopped. Because I’d no sooner said Mrs. Halloran’s name aloud than the memory of having talked to her on Tuesday morning came to me.
“Wait, let me think. Mrs. Halloran’s back! She came back from Chicago. She called up Tuesday morning just before I left for downtown. And she asked to talk to Mrs. Garr.”
Mr. Grant glimmered at me for a long time, his eyes bewildered behind their glasses.
“Then Mrs. Garr must have come back. You’d think she’d come here. But I haven’t seen her around at all, and I was looking for her. My rent was due. You know, it was queer, very queer, about my seeing her Friday night. After the train had left, you know. I could have sworn it was Mrs. Garr. After all, it’s light at eight thirty now. You don’t believe in—er—ghosts, do you?”
I laughed. “No, and I don’t think you saw any. But I agree it’s queer. Perhaps she did go somewhere else after she came in on the train Tuesday morning. Or she might have been hurt, run over—be in a hospital somewhere.”
“You think we should do nothing, then?”
“Oh no, I think we should find out where she is, in case we should be doing something. But what could we do? Call the hospitals? I know; we could call Mrs. Halloran.”
We decided to do that. There were plenty of Hallorans in the phone book, but none on South Dunlop, where Mrs. Garr had told me the Hallorans lived.
The Hallorans had no telephone, then. But the more names I looked through the less I thought I could let the matter drop.
“Just the same, I don’t want to go out all that way to see the Hallorans,” I admitted. “Who else is home?”
“The Wallers, I think. Miss Sands.”
“Let’s go up to see the Wallers. We’ll ask them what should be done.”
We both went up.
Mr. Waller, with his shoes comfortably off, was reading; Mrs. Waller was busy with paste, sheets of paper, and cut-out newspaper photographs of children, matching twins for the Comet contest. They weren’t much interested at first in our worries over Mrs. Garr.
“That old bitch,” Mr. Waller interrupted testily. “The longer she stops away the better I like it.”
“She might have got hit by a hit-run driver, though,” Mrs. Waller speculated with the indecent hope people seem to have that some other person will have come to harm.
Mr. Waller grew more alert.
“That’s so, that’s so. Might even be dead. Where did you say this Halloran fella lived?”
“It’s on South Dunlop Street. The city directory’s probably the only place you could find the number. It isn’t in the phone book. You don’t think we should call the hospitals first? Or maybe the police?”
Mr. Waller turned that over slowly.
“Oh, she’d have had this address on her somewhere if the hospitals or the police had her.
