CHAPTER XVI

MRS. LESLIE TURNS DETECTIVE

“How can anybody call Monday a blue day?” asked Josie the next morning as Mrs. Leslie served a dainty breakfast to the two girls. “It seems to me to be the most wonderful morning in the whole week. Even wash day holds no terrors for me. It always has been the very best day of all for me, a kind of weekly Easter, a day in which the whole world can start afresh.”

“I’m glad you like it,” said Mrs. Leslie, grimly. “I’ve been brought up to feel differently.” Mrs. Leslie was having a mental and moral reaction from the excitement of the Saturday and Sunday just passed. “Monday was always a serious day with us in the country.”

“But, Mother,” laughed Mary, “you surely do not consider it your religious duty to be blue on Monday.”

“Not exactly religious--but--”

“Now, Mrs. Leslie, please don’t be too down-hearted or too busy because I have a task for you that I am sure you can’t resist.”

“Don’t be too sure child, because I am planning to clean beds to-day. The sun is shining and it is a good thing to be beforehand with beds. I can sun the things in the back yard--”

“The very thing!” cried Josie delightedly. “The more you are out in the back yard the better because I do so want you to keep an eye on those Kambourians from the rear. They will not be the least suspicious of a busy housewife engaged in the legitimate search connected with beds and early spring.”

Mrs. Leslie’s Monday gloom lifted a little. Being a private detective was rather more interesting than the usual humdrum of housekeeping. She promised Josie to keep a sharp lookout on the neighbors.

“You never can tell about foreigners. They are more than apt to be off color,” she declared. “If they do anything peculiar while you are away, how must I proceed, Josie?”

“Proceed to call up Burnett & Burnett, phone number, Preston 11, and ask for Mr. Theodore Burnett--take no substitute. Tell him who you are and what is happening. He will do the rest. The Kambourians may be absent all day but the chances are the woman will not leave the house. The place is even now being watched by detectives. But detectives do not always see everything and I am depending on you to see what they don’t see.”

“Detectives watching the house now!” cried Mrs. Leslie, “I should say this isn’t a blue Monday. I am thrilled indeed to be in the midst of a mystery. Hurry up and get off, girls, so I can get out in the back yard and see what I see.”

“Now, Mother, don’t overdo it,” cautioned Mary.

“Me overdo it!” said Mrs. Leslie, indignantly. “I know exactly how to behave under the circumstances. I am going to run in and out with pillows and blankets and carry out one slat at a time and put mattresses in the windows and let them fall in the yard. I just wish you and Josie could see me.”

“I wish we could,” laughed Josie. “I am sure you are going to do it splendidly and I am so glad you are interested in it. I just know you will beat all the police in Wakely in helping to bring these crooks to justice.”

The girls were hardly out of the house when Major Simpson was calling Mrs. Leslie on the telephone. The dear lady had not bargained for such a development and it was with difficulty that she commanded her voice to answer the smug old man as she knew he must be answered. She was sorry she had not asked instructions from Josie on how to meet such an emergency, but Major Simpson took matters in his own hands and there was little for her to say but yes and no.

“And how is my one time neighbor this morning? I hope she is well.”

“Yes, thank you!”

“Has that artful young person left your house?”

“Yes!”

“And she is going to return to her labors at Burnett & Burnett’s?”

“Yes!”

“What did she say concerning the article in the paper yesterday? You saw it, did you not?”

“Yes!”

“It was unfortunate that it should have been published but newspapers are ever on the alert for just such stories; human interest, you know.”

“Yes!”

“Was the artful person angry at the publicity given the matter?”

“No!”

“What did she say?”

“I can’t remember exactly, but I think she said ‘Gee.’”

“Of course I shall be for dismissing the young person, but Mr. Theodore Burnett evidently thinks otherwise. These young men think they know it all, but I have not dealt with crime all these years without acquiring some knowledge of the youthful criminals. There is no reforming them. Well, Miss Polly, I thank you for cooperating so wonderfully with me in this matter. And you are not angry that the story--er--er--concerning the coffee and doughnuts and er--er--the pink parasol should have leaked out?”

Mrs. Leslie’s: “Old idiot!” slipped out before she knew it but Major Simpson’s: “What? What?” brought her to her senses and she covered her retreat with a cough and smoothed things down by: “Old intimate friends,” hoping that intimate and idiot might sound more or less alike over a telephone.

“Of course you will not let this young person remain under your roof,” the Major proceeded. “I feel in a measure er--er--responsible for you, Miss Polly, and hope you will allow me to dictate to you to some extent. This young woman, even though Mr. Theodore Burnett is so soft hearted as to keep her in the employ of his firm, is hardly a fit person to associate with you or your--er--er--charming daughter--because I am sure she is charming if she is your daughter. I wish you would promise me that this O’Gorman person will not remain in your home another night.”

Mrs. Leslie hung up the receiver with a click. She was possessed with a fury against the interfering Major that made it impossible to continue the conversation although all that it entailed at her end was a monosyllabic reply. She could well picture him at the other end of the line, indignantly upraiding the telephone operator for having so rudely cut him off. Her bell rang again sharply but she scorned answering it and went about her combined business of bed airing and female sleuthing with added vigor.

“Miserable old man that he is! Wants me to turn a girl out in the street just because he has made up his mind she is a thief. I don’t feel bad any longer about hoodwinking the old idiot. He is narrow and mean or he wouldn’t ask me to do it.”

Josie was right in her guess--Madame Kambourian did not leave the house that day. She, too, found many things to busy her on that bright Monday. Much sorting and airing seemed to be going on in the apartment next to the Leslies. Several times Mrs. Leslie looked up from her labors and saw the pleasant, plump countenance of Mrs. Kambourian peering at her from the open window. Once she nodded and a cheerful “Good mor-r-rning,” was the response.

“A nice day for preliminary spring cleaning,” ventured Mrs. Leslie.

“Ver-r-ry nice,” said the neighbor, placing a silver fox scarf and a sealskin jacket on the window sill where the sun could shine upon them.

“You are not expecting moths this soon are you?” queried Mrs. Leslie.

“Moths? You mean the cr-r-eatures that feed upon the fur-r and wool? Ah, Heaven forbid! I merely sun my things because I love the sun and then it is war-r-m and I may not need them now for many months. I pack them up per-r-haps.”

Through the open window Mrs. Leslie could see a large packing box and a wardrobe trunk.

“Getting ready to leave! It looks to me as though Josie should know this,” she said to herself. Preston 11 was immediately called for by the eager amateur detective and Mr. Theodore Burnett put on the line.

“This is Mrs. Leslie, Mr. Burnett, Josie O’Gorman’s friend. Please tell her the foreigners next door to us are getting ready to move and the woman is sunning a silver fox scarf and a sealskin jacket, both of them too good for anybody living in this house to use. I haven’t any good furs of my own but I can tell them a mile off.”

Mr. Theodore Burnett smiled and made a note of the fact that the amateur lady detective had no furs but knew good ones a mile off. This was the same lady of whose judgment in the matter of dry goods Major Simpson had spoken so highly, knowing from the first that Josie O’Gorman’s clothes were of material too good to have been bought from the salary of a novice at the notion counter.

“Clever lady!” he muttered in an aside, “Must keep her in mind.” He thanked her profusely for the information and begged her to keep a sharp lookout through the day. “The evidence you have gathered is invaluable, my dear lady,” he assured her.

“The window is open and I can see a large packing box and a wardrobe trunk and this Kambourian woman is folding and packing as fast as she can. I gossiped with her a moment, quite casually, and she told me herself she was thinking of moving. You’d best tell Josie right off.”

“You are right! Thank you, and good bye!”

Mr. Burnett had just hung up the receiver when Major Simpson came bustling into the office.

“Ah, Mr. Theodore, and how are you this nice sunny morning? Spring in the air, my boy, spring! I have come to see you concerning this O’Gorman person. Singular case--quite singular! She is actually working behind the notion counter this morning quite as though nothing had happened--not at all abashed--but meek withal, meek and I must say modest. She dropped her eyes when I passed and had occasion to stoop and hide her head. Modest, quite modest! I feel more inclined to deal gently with one who shows becoming modesty.”

Mr. Burnett could not help a sly smile but he controlled himself and said rather sternly:

“Major Simpson, I ask you to let me do what dealing is necessary with Miss O’Gorman, in fact, I ask you most emphatically.”

This was as near as either of the Burnett brothers had ever come to commanding the old gentleman whom they had so unwillingly inherited from their predecessors, but Mr. Theodore Burnett had no intention of letting Major Simpson mix himself up in the matter of Josie O’Gorman and her methods any more than possible.

“Certainly!” said the elderly detective, stiffly. “I have never been one to overstep authority, but I feel it is my duty to warn you, young and untried, against the machinations of a type like this O’Gorman person.”

“All right, Major Simpson, I am warned--and now I shall go and interview the young lady.”

“Do not be too easy on her,” insisted the determined Major. “I am--” But what he was saying Mr. Burnett did not wait to hear. He felt that Josie must be told immediately of the silver fox scarf and fur coat sunning in the rear window at Number 11 Meadow Street, and of the large packing box and wardrobe trunk and of Mrs. Leslie’s gossip. He was in the elevator and making for the street floor of the store before the Major’s sentence was completed.

All was as Major Simpson had reported. There was Josie O’Gorman conducting herself as though nothing had happened, selling tapes and pins with as much industry as she would have shown had her living depended upon it.

At the jewel novelty counter across the aisle Miss Fauntleroy moved with deliberate grace, totally unconscious of the fact that the sandy haired little person with the unimportant countenance, who seemed so busy making unimportant sales of bone buttons and shoe laces, never once let the haughty beauty get out of her line of vision.