CHAPTER XI

MRS. LESLIE WON TO THE CAUSE

“No doubt I deserve it,” said Josie solemnly.

“Even if you do I cannot bear to think of your being there and, although it is not quite honorable of me to do so, I am going to assist you to run away. Honor isn’t everything. A woman must be human first and a human being could not stand by and see a poor young thing like you branded as a criminal with a terrible jail sentence staring you in the face.”

“But, my dear lady, I have not confessed to being a real criminal--only not quite honest in that--”

“But there is no line to draw where honesty is concerned. That is what you shall have to learn. One is either honest or dishonest--but you are so young--”

“But, Mrs. Leslie, what do you and Mary think I have done?”

“Not me!” cried Mary. “I am sure of you, Josie. I simply _know_ you have done nothing wrong.”

“Thank you, Mary! Then what does your mother think I have done?”

“Think--why, you poor dear child, I know you are a thief--at least a shoplifter,” blurted out Mrs. Leslie. “Major Simpson has been keeping his eye on you for weeks and weeks and he has at last rounded you up. Oh, why do we stand here and talk? You must be leaving before he gets here. I have telephoned him that you have come back.”

“Ah--then I am the watermelons,” laughed Josie.

“Yes, I meant lemons but I got so mixed because I was excited. I knew it was something people take to picnics and watermelons are good to take although they are only the shipped Georgia melons we get for the Fourth of July. All the time it was lemonade I was thinking about. Anyhow watermelons was nearer to it than sandwiches would have been. I know you think I am crazy but I’m not.”

“No, I know very well you are exceedingly sane,” said Josie gently. “You are simply overwrought and are thinking aloud. But now tell me what it is. You mean you have telephoned Major Simpson that I have come back and he will be along soon with the handcuffs?”

“Oh-h-h! Not that!”

“Perhaps not,” smiled Josie, “but I think you had better let me make a clean breast of the whole affair and then we will decide what is to be done. In the first place, I am not a shop girl at all--”

“Didn’t I tell you?” Mrs. Leslie said to Mary.

“Please don’t interrupt, Mother,” begged Mary.

“But I am a detective brought here from Dorfield by Burnett & Burnett to find out who has been shoplifting so successfully,” Josie continued.

“Another detective!” gasped Mrs. Leslie.

“Yes, although I must say that poor old Major Simpson hardly deserves to be called one. I have thought it best not to tell anyone what brought me to Wakely since both Mr. Charles and Mr. Theodore Burnett were opposed to letting Major Simpson know they had employed someone over his head, as it were. It seems he has never yet detected a thing about anybody, and while they do not want to hurt his feelings they are determined to track the thieves if possible. I was recommended to the firm as a capable person and was employed by them. We felt I could accomplish more if I had a job in the store and that is how I came to tell you that I was a shop girl. I have never liked having to conceal my real profession from you and Mary but it had to be done. Major Simpson from the first seemed to have a peculiar interest in me and I thought it was because he had heard of my father. Perhaps you have never heard of him, but he was one of the greatest and cleverest of detectives.”

“Not Detective O’Gorman?” cried Mrs. Leslie. “Not the man who found Margaret Carson, the millionaire baby! Not the one who tracked down the famous counterfeiters at Dempsey’s Mill by hiding in a meal sack for a whole day and night! Not the one who proved the old maid sister had put rat poison in the chicken salad at the wedding just to get even with the young man who was marrying her sister all because one time he had shot her cat for stealing chickens! Oh, Josie, to think of my having you right here under my--my ceiling for all these weeks and not knowing you were Detective O’Gorman’s daughter. Why, my husband and I never missed a thing he did in the way of detecting crime and we followed every inch of his work if we could just get hold of it. Of course I knew he lived in Washington and if you had ever mentioned Washington I might have guessed, but you see, you never did.”

“No, I never did,” said Josie, whose eyes were full of tears. How often she had mentioned her father, expecting him to be known and remembered, and how often she had been mortified at the ignorance of other persons. Now, here was this quiet country woman who had not even known how to punch on an electric light until she came to Wakely to live, yet she knew all about the great O’Gorman and gave him all honor and praise.

“Go on, Josie! I did not mean to interrupt, but I just had to. I wish my dear husband could have met you. He was the one that got me so interested in detective tales. But go on!”

“I believe I left off where I realized Major Simpson took an interest in me. This interest manifested itself in a peculiar way but I did not realize until this afternoon what the poor old man thought. I was so sure he was trying to find out O’Gorman methods of detecting that I went blindly on my way. The fact is, I teased the old fellow. He used to follow me around the street and I’d keep him guessing and then lose him. It is a very easy thing to do.”

“The Sylvester Simpsons are very good people,” murmured Mrs. Leslie, but Mary gave her a beseeching glance and she desisted from further interruptions.

“I have been walking the streets of Wakely a great deal because I have been determined to find out where the many employees of Burnett & Burnett’s live, as well as something about their habits. You see, Mr. Charles Burnett had a suspicion that the shoplifting was done from the inside. So while Major Simpson was under the impression that I was playing hide and seek with him I have really been on my job, which did not stop with closing time at the store. This afternoon I went out to Linden Heights to track down a young person and found she has given a fictitious address.”

“Oh, how exciting!” exclaimed Mrs. Leslie. “Why do you suppose--?”

“I don’t know but I am going to find out. A whole lot of things have happened this afternoon that I have to find out about. In the first place, there was a theft of some priceless lace and a mesh bag--”

“Oh--h! I forgot that!” cried Mrs. Leslie. “And what were you doing with those things? That is what has been worrying me sick.”

“I told you I did not know when you asked me before, and I told you the truth. Since then a gleam of light has been shed on how I got those things but it is such a faint gleam that I feel it best not to say anything more about it until I can see more clearly myself. I am going to ask you and Mary to trust me a little longer in so far as the lace and gold bag being found in my pocket is concerned.”

“Indeed I have always trusted you, Josie,” declared Mary.

“Well I must say I haven’t,” said Mrs. Leslie, stoutly, “and I’d like to know now where those things are. Major Simpson will be coming along here before you know it and I am not willing for him to find them in my apartment. Where are they, Josie?”

“They are where they belong--with Mr. Theodore Burnett. I took them to him the moment I was aware of the fact that they were in my possession.”

“Mr. Theodore Burnett! Then was he the man who came home with you, the one who stopped three doors up?”

“Yes, that was Mr. Theodore Burnett, the junior member of the firm.”

“Heavens above! And I took him to be one of your confederates!”

“So he is, and we happen to be working on an inside job. It was never my idea to be so secretive about my being a detective, at least so far as Major Simpson was concerned, but the Burnetts were sure he would not know how to cooperate with me and that if a clue was found he would bungle because he is so--so--I might say, old fashioned, though that is hardly the word because the business of detecting crime is as old as crime itself, and what new wrinkles have been discovered do not amount to a row of pins.”

“There now, it was that kind of talk that made me say you were not a notion counter girl,” said Mrs. Leslie. “But you will tell Major Simpson now, surely.”

“No, not yet! I am afraid he would bungle things. Mr. Burnett and I have decided to keep him in the dark as to my business until the real thieves are caught.”

“Of course if you catch the shoplifters you want the glory of it and if you took him in on it he might get half,” said Mrs. Leslie. “That’s human nature.”

“I don’t care a snap for the glory,” laughed Josie. “It may be human nature, but it is not mine and it was not my father’s. I know you think this will sound smug, but honestly and truly the doing of the work is what interests me and anybody who wants to can walk off with the laurel wreath. Of course the laborer is worthy of his hire and I want the hard cash for delivering the goods. Not that I do the work for money either--that is, I don’t think about the money and of it while I am doing it. After it is all over it is rather pleasant to deposit a fat check in the bank.”

“Yes, I reckon it is, and it takes money to dress as you do,” said Mrs. Leslie.

“As I do?” laughed Josie. “Why, Mrs. Leslie, I don’t believe there is a girl at Burnett & Burnett’s so simply dressed as I am.”

“Simply but elegantly!” insisted Mrs. Leslie. “I know dress goods when I see it--and shoes--there is nothing simple about your shoes.”

“Well, you are right, my dear lady. I do get good material for my frocks and I do wear good shoes. By the way, what did Major Simpson think of my shoes?”

“Your shoes!” and Mrs. Leslie blushed furiously. “What do you mean, Josie? But I’m not going to lie about it. The Major did go in your room, but he made me feel it was in the cause of the upholding of the law that I should take him there. He did not meddle with anything however--except--”

“Except my little book in the top drawer,” teased Josie.

“Yes--” faltered the much embarrassed hostess, “but how did you know that?”

“I knew it in the first place because the book was not quite in the corner and the back turned in instead of out. But if I had not known it already this would have been proof that someone had been in my drawer.” Josie produced the broken cuff link.

“Oh, my dear, I am so mortified that I let that bigoted old man make such a fool of me,” wailed Mrs. Leslie. “He doesn’t know the first thing about the detective business, either. And I thought he was so clever. You see he is the first one I ever knew and he talked so knowingly. The idea of his leaving a cuff link in the drawer! And to think of his spending all this time tracking down a detective! Anybody could see with half an eye that you are as honest as the day is long. Josie, I am going to do anything you tell me to keep your identity concealed from old Major Simpson. I don’t care if he does belong to one of the most respectable families in our county, with his ancestral home right next to mine--and I don’t care if he did give me a pink parasol when I was a little girl. He is a poor detective and that is what I am interested in.”

“That’s the way to talk,” said Josie, and the girls laughed so merrily that Mrs. Leslie joined in. “But what line of subterfuge are we to decide on? It is really very important to keep the poor man fooled for a few days yet.”

“I’ll phone him again and tell him the watermelons are to be with me for some time--I mean lemons--and he need have no fear of losing them.”