CHAPTER X

“THE WATERMELONS HAVE COME”

Mr. Burnett would not hear of Josie’s leaving until he had ordered his car.

“I’ll take you myself,” he insisted.

“But suppose Major Simpson sees us,” laughed Josie.

“Oh, won’t that be delicious?” from May. “Do you fancy he will think Brother Teddy is shoplifting from himself?”

“Of course, if he sees me driving around with a bunch of lace and a gold mesh bag he could come to no other conclusion.”

“Well! I have been called many things, but never before a bunch of lace and a gold mesh bag,” said Josie, buttoning her neat sport coat. “Wait, let me see that there is nothing in my pockets that does not belong to me, because if I don’t look out I’ll be arrested yet.”

“Now, my dear,” said Mrs. Burnett, “I am going to make you promise to come and dine with us very soon. I want to hear some of the many tales of the criminals you have caught up with. I know you think that is a strange taste for an old lady like me, but I simply dote on detective stories and I am sure you know interesting things that don’t get in books.”

“Please do! Please do!” chorused the sisters, and Josie promised, although she had her doubts about the advisability of accepting such an invitation, certainly not until the shoplifting plot was unraveled.

Mr. Theodore Burnett’s car was a new one, large and elegant, with silver mountings, and painted a midnight blue. Josie could not resist a sly smile at herself when the owner helped her in so carefully. She wondered what Min and Gertie and Jane would say could they see her riding around in such luxury.

“Perhaps you had better let me out at the corner and not take me all the way to my door,” she suggested.

“Nonsense!” insisted Mr. Burnett. “I am not accustomed to dumping young ladies at the corner.”

As it was a well known fact that Mr. Theodore Burnett was not accustomed to driving young ladies around at all, and since young ladies must be driven before they can be dumped, no doubt he was speaking the truth. Nevertheless, Josie insisted on being dumped, if not at the corner, at least not in front of the shabby apartment house. He compromised by bringing the car to a standstill four doors from No. 11.

Had Josie not been so occupied in bidding Mr. Burnett good bye she would have seen that Mrs. Leslie was on the stoop of the apartment house, peering anxiously into the winter twilight. She had seen the handsome car pass and drive up to the curb and then her little lodger alight with the courteous assistance of a very good looking gentleman verging onto middle age.

As the afternoon wore on Mrs. Leslie’s concern for Josie had outweighed her suspicions. Suppose she did not come back--what then would happen to her? She regretted exceedingly that she had permitted herself to be drawn into Major Simpson’s plot to entrap the young girl. Who could tell what temptations she had had? She thought of her own Mary. Her life had been sheltered, her rearing, careful, her training, Christian. Perhaps Josie O’Gorman had never known a mother’s and father’s care. Was it the part of a Christian woman with a daughter of her own to try to catch and bring to justice a poor young thing who trusted her--she might even say loved her? How much better it would be to warn the girl and try to reform her than betray her and have her sent to prison where no doubt she would be taught a lesson but in the teaching might become a hardened criminal. Certainly Josie was no hardened criminal yet. Criminal she might be but there was something very kind and sweet about the poor thing.

“If only I had not promised Major Simpson!” she said to herself over and over. “If only I had not told him about the lace and the gold mesh bag! He is started now and there is no stopping him. It would be different if Josie was the kind of girl that flirted or ran around with men. There is nothing like that about her at all. She is so refined, so circumspect. She may be a kleptomaniac, poor little thing, and not be able to resist stealing. I have a great mind to go in the house this minute and phone the Major that I will no longer aid and abet him in this cruel pursuit of the poor young thing.”

Mrs. Leslie had come out on the stoop for the third time, hoping and yet fearing to see Josie returning. Just as she had come to the conclusion to give her old neighbor and friend an ultimatum concerning her lodger--since she was so refined and was not the kind of girl to flirt or go joy riding with strange men--the large blue car came rolling up the street past No. 11 and stopped a few doors off.

Meadow was a quiet street, shabby and unpretentious. Few handsome automobiles passed that way and if they did they seldom stopped. Mrs. Leslie was attracted by its new and shining splendor and when it came to a full stop close to the curb and no less a person than her abused lodger alighted and stood for a moment talking gaily with the handsome, well dressed owner of the car, Mrs. Leslie’s heart hardened again and she hurried into the house to inform the Major that the prodigal had returned.

“What number? What number?” was all the satisfaction Mrs. Leslie could get from her new telephone. Of course this was most irritating when she wanted to get the message over to Major Simpson before Josie should get in the apartment. The operator was stupid or the line was crossed or something, at any rate Josie was in the hall before the connection was made. Then the distracted lady was sure that Major Simpson at the other end bellowed quite loud enough for Josie to hear him, although she was all the way across the room from the telephone.

“Well! Well! This is Sylvester Simpson--Major Simpson of Burnett & Burnett’s. What is it? Who are you? What do you want?”

Mrs. Leslie could hardly refrain from calling him an old idiot. If he had not come from her county and belonged to such a highly respectable family she would have done so. As it was she merely said: “Hello! Hello!” all the time trying to remember what she was to say if Josie got back. She knew it was something connected with picnics, but the major’s bellowing and stupidity had driven it from her mind. She did not know why she had connected the cryptic code with picnics--she couldn’t remember that or anything else. She only knew that Josie O’Gorman had come driving up in a very handsome blue car and had been standing chatting very intimately with a handsome stranger when, so far as she knew, her lodger had no acquaintances in Wakely. Why had the car not stopped in front of the apartment house? That in itself was shady. She also knew that she had promised Major Silvester Simpson to let him know when Josie returned if she ever did return. She was to name no names but merely say that something that was in some way connected with picnics had come. She tried to think, but the Major’s impatient “Well! Well!” at the other and drove all coherency from her thoughts. She must say something or she was sure the impatient old man would pull his telephone out by the roots.

“The watermelons have come!” she gasped. “They just came--the watermelons!” and then she heard a great spluttering at the other end of the line and a faint: “Is that you Polly?”

“Yes sir!” she said, and hung up the receiver.

“Watermelons! This time of the year?” questioned Josie curiously, and then realized that something had happened and was still happening. Mrs. Leslie’s cheeks were burning and her usually tidy hair had escaped from its net and was standing out in a far from respectable manner. She looked at Josie with sad, unfriendly eyes, and her mouth trembled as she said:

“Good evening!”

“Good evening!” returned Josie. “I--I hope nothing is the matter, Mrs. Leslie.”

“Matter! Nothing that I know of.” But Mrs. Leslie was too honest to dissemble and suddenly she lost all control of herself and sinking into a chair, burst into tears.

“Oh, my dear, my dear!” cried Josie kneeling by her side. “Please, please, Mrs. Leslie, tell me if anything is the matter. Where is Mary?”

Mrs. Leslie pointed to the closed bedroom door.

“Not ill?”

She shook her head in mute denial.

“Is it something connected with me--with me and Major Simpson that has upset you so?”

The lady did not speak, but a tightening of the hand which Josie held gave the girl to understand that it was something to do with her and the old detective that was making her weep.

“And the watermelons--are they a private dish or am I to have a slice? Come now, my dear friend, for you are dear friends--both you and Mary--please tell me what it is all about. I feel you are angry with me about something and distrust me in some way. I must have a talk with you and Mary.”

Mary, whose door was not so tightly closed that she could not hear her name mentioned, came quickly into the living room. She, too, had been weeping, but her mother’s wild message concerning watermelons had brought on a fit of uncontrollable laughter and now she was verging on hysterics. She tried to speak but could only giggle helplessly.

Josie looked at mother and daughter with a quizzical expression as much as to say: “Well what next?” Then she drew Mary to a seat and standing in the middle of the room she spoke in a tone of patient gentleness and humility.

“I feel sure that something has arisen to make you doubt and distrust me. I am to blame for this because I have been concealing something from you that no doubt I should have told you long ago, but my profession is such that it is wiser and safer to keep my own counsel.”

“Oh--hh!” shuddered Mrs. Leslie. “Don’t tell us anything that you will regret. You can get away now if you go immediately and wild horses will not drag from me where you have gone. Indeed, you need not even tell me where you are going--but go quickly, poor child.”

“Are you sending me away?”

“Not sending you, just allowing you to go before it is too late. I may get into trouble for warning you but I don’t care. I cannot see you put behind bars.” Mrs. Leslie wept afresh.