CHAPTER II

THE NEW HOME ON MEADOW STREET

Wakely classed itself as a city, while Dorfield was content to be listed as a mere town that might someday grow up. In spite of its size, Wakely seemed to our young detective to be a very lonesome place on that first Sunday she was compelled to spend away from all her dear friends in Dorfield, where she had lived since her father’s death. There were plenty of people in Wakely, too many people, in fact, making the housing problem a serious one. But nobody knew Josie and nobody cared to know her. Nobody paid the least attention to her at the beautiful old church where she had gone to worship in the morning; nobody spoke to her at the clean little restaurant where she had eaten her Sunday dinner; and now as she sat on a bench in the city park, nobody in all the surging throngs out for the usual Sunday stroll even so much as glanced her way.

Josie was not inclined to be lonesome. She was too interested in people and things to think very much of her own aloneness, but there were times when in spite of herself she felt a crying need for a real home of her own; something more than the partitioned off rear end of a shop, which was where she had been living for some time before coming to Wakely. The place was called The Higgledy Piggledy Shop, conducted by Josie and her friends Elizabeth Wright and Irene Mae Farlane, and they had managed it to their profit and to the delectation of the citizens of Dorfield, who found in it a long felt want.

If the Higgledy Piggledies did not have what you wanted they would get it for you, and if they could not do what you wished done they would see to it that someone else did do it. For Josie the shop was in reality a side line of the detective business, but it was of great interest to her and she missed the gay chatter of the partners, the daily visits of her dear Mary Louise--young Mrs. Danny Dexter--and she sorely missed the kindly interest and advice of Captain Charlie Lonsdale, the Chief of Police of Dorfield. He it was who had so highly recommended Josie to Burnett & Burnett.

“I almost wish he hadn’t,” sighed Josie as she sat on the park bench in the wintry sunshine and watched the people of Wakely swarm past. “I don’t care much who steals the stupid old dry-goods. It’s a dull job and I’d be glad to be out of it.”

“Hello! There’s somebody I know--but who on earth is it? Where have I seen that boy before? Certainly I don’t remember ever having laid eyes on his companions, rare birds that they are!”

Many persons pride themselves on never forgetting a face, but Josie might have patted herself on the back for never forgetting a pair of shoulders, a set of head, a contour of cheek or chin. However, she was completely baffled by the youth who had passed her as she sat on the hard, cold bench. Our little detective was irritated that she could not remember where she had seen that turn of cheek and line of shoulder, so irritated that she decided the seat in the park was very uncomfortable and she would trail along behind the trio and find out something about them. Her curiosity was idle but was it not Sunday afternoon? Why not let curiosity be idle as well as persons?

The man and woman walking with the youth appeared too young to be the father and mother of the boy and too old to be brother and sister, yet there was an intangible resemblance to both that led Josie to conclude they were his parents. The man was swarthy, black-eyed, and flashily dressed in a checked suit, gray spats and a brown derby. He walked with a slight swagger, twirling a slender cane in his lemon colored gloved hand.

The woman was small, inclined to be stout, and a great mop of henna colored hair elaborately dressed in waves and puffs defied oversight and invited scrutiny. She wore a handsome fur cloak and a purple velvet hat. Her cheeks and lips were tinted a bright coral and her nose was powdered like a marshmallow. In spite of the paint and powder there was something youthful and attractive about the woman. She walked with a light step and had a gay bird-like manner.

The younger man, or boy--he looked about eighteen, Josie decided--had an elegance that his companions lacked, although they would have been greatly astonished had they been told that the quiet unimportant little person, whom they had passed in the park and who later had passed them on the sidewalk, considered them anything but the last cry of elegance and fashion. Josie was able to get a good look at the trio at a crossing. Undoubtedly the boy was the son of the bizarre couple. He had his father’s bold black eyes and his mother’s delicate tilted nose and softly rounded cheek.

“Where--where have I seen him before?” Josie asked herself. “Never mind, I’ll remember someday. In the mean time I think I’ll find out where they live--not that it is any of my business--but one never can tell when information will come in handy in this business of detecting criminals. Anyhow I don’t trust those two, although I reckon the boy is all right. He looks too young to be anything else but all right and he looks honest, at least he looks honest in contrast to his father. My opinion is that the old one is in checks now but has been in stripes, or should have been. I wonder what they do. People, I’ll bet anything, and they do them brown while they are about it.”

Josie stopped to look in a window in order to let the trio get ahead of her and then nonchalantly followed them at a safe distance. They talked animatedly and their gestures were decidedly foreign-like in their swift and jerky repetition. It was impossible for Josie to catch what they were saying without seeming too interested in them, but it was easy to see that both man and woman were endeavoring to pacify the youth and persuade him to do something to which he was opposed. Once he stopped short on the sidewalk and Josie came within earshot as the boy said in a tone of suppressed violence:

“I tell you I’m sick of the whole game. I’m going to quit!”

“Oh, Roy, darling, not just now,” purred the woman, and Josie noted that the R in Roy and darling was softly rolled, giving a slightly foreign accent. “Not now when--” but the woman whispered the rest and the listener could not hear what was the big reason for not quitting just yet, nor could she gather what the game was that Roy wanted to quit.

The man said nothing, merely stood gnawing his moustache in a manner highly melodramatic and cut the air viciously with his slender cane. Josie loitered after them, wondering what part of the city they lived in, what they did for a living, and in the back of her brain was always the question: “Where have I seen the boy before?”

Josie was stopping for the time being at a hotel, though she realized it would never do for it to be known that a shop girl was living so extravagantly. Early in life Josie O’Gorman had learned from her illustrious father that in the detective business no detail was too small to be overlooked. If one was supposed to be a shop girl then one must live, eat, dress, act and talk like a shop girl. After three days at Burnett & Burnett’s Josie had come to the conclusion that shop girls were like any other wage earning girls, some silly, some clever; some educated, some ignorant; some inclined to put all their earnings on their backs, some saving up for a rainy day; but none of them were able to live in hotels. So, to play the part, she must bestir herself and find other quarters. The firm was paying her handsomely for her time and she could well afford to keep her comfortable room and bath. She was tempted to do it and give a false address if any of the girls should ask her where she lived but she remembered one of her father’s favorite sayings:

“Oh, what a tangled web we weave When first we practice to deceive.”

This old saying had decided the matter for her and on that Sunday afternoon she had armed herself with clippings from the “Boarders Wanted” column in the morning paper and was determined to go the rounds and settle herself as soon as possible. The trio she was following turned the corner. Josie turned after them. Glancing at the street sign she read that she was on Meadow Street. Several of the ads were on Meadow Street. She ran quickly through them.

The man, woman and youth went in at No. 11. It was a shabby, drab looking apartment house. Yes, there was a room for rent in that very house--“Widow and daughter wish to rent room to young business woman. 11 East Meadow, apartment 4.”

Josie had liked the ad from the beginning. “They don’t flaunt their own refinement in their ad and they say business woman instead of business lady. They delicately inform the public that there is no brute of a husband around. On the whole I believe I’ll rent a room at 11 East Meadow. I can keep my eye on those flashy folk if I do. I suppose it’s none of my business--but one never can tell.”

Josie noticed that the interesting trio went in the house without ringing one of the bells displayed in the lobby. “That means they either live here or are intimate with someone who does,” was her conclusion.

Apartment 4 proved to be one of the back ones on the lower floor. The family who had so interested Josie had entered the one marked 3. After ringing the bell of No. 4, Josie had peered into the dark hall and had plainly seen the fur coat of the henna haired woman disappear through the door after the man in the checked suit had opened it with a latch key.

“That settles me,” thought Josie. “I’ll take this room if the widow and her daughter turn out to be most undesirable landladies in Wakely.”

Fortunately they turned out to be pleasant folk who had seen better days, to which the refinement and taste in the furnishings of their living room gave mute evidence. The tiny bedroom advertised for rent suited Josie perfectly; suited also the part she must play as a new shop girl at Burnett & Burnett’s with but little money to spend on sleeping quarters.

Mrs. Leslie did hemstitching and fine embroidery to eke out the salary her daughter made as a stenographer. The home was neat, and while Josie’s room had only one very small window, it did not open on a court but had a view of a small back yard which Mrs. Leslie informed her would later prove a great pleasure to them all.

“It is really quite sweet, and the janitor says that in the spring we may plant all the seeds there we want to. Mary and I will be much happier if we have a place where we can dig. We never quite get over longing for the country.”

Everything being satisfactory, Josie moved in that very evening, the question of references being waived because Mrs. Leslie had a feeling when she looked in Josie’s honest face that she was going to like her; and since one of the trusted employees of Burnett & Burnett’s came from her county that fact was enough to guarantee the goodness of any one of his fellow employees.

“We are sorry not to give you your meals,” said Mrs. Leslie, “but Mary and I live so simply.”

“You couldn’t live too simply for me,” declared Josie, “but I wouldn’t be any trouble to you for worlds. I can easily get my meals at one of the many restaurants near here.”

“Oh Mother, couldn’t we?” asked Mary. “Anyhow just breakfast--” and Mrs. Leslie decided they could manage breakfast and dinner too. So Josie was installed as a lodger and boarder and soon the lonesome feeling departed as she began to think that perhaps Wakely was not such a dismally lonely city after all.

The Leslies were a gentle, pleasant, kindly pair, and Josie was sorely tempted to tell them all about herself; how she happened to be in Wakely and what her real profession was. But she remembered in time what her father used to say, holding up a forefinger in impressive fashion:

“You know and I know and that makes eleven.”

So Josie held her tongue. She was such an “eloquent listener” that persons were inclined to tell her all about themselves and to forget to ask for the story of her life. The Leslies were like most others and found themselves chatting away to their new lodger with little or no restraint. She found out they were strangers in Wakely, having lived there only two months, knowing very few people in the town and none of the fellow tenants.

“We don’t even know the people who live right next to us,” said Mary. “Mother says she is glad we don’t but I must confess I’d rather like to know the boy. He is so handsome and kind of sad looking. I can’t say much for the sister, though. She is handsome enough but at times a little coarse and rough. The boy is at home only on Saturday afternoons and Sunday. I have an idea he and his sister are not on very good terms. I have never yet seen them go anywhere together. I can’t see why, because if I had a brother I’d be tagging on after him all the time.”

“Especially if he were such a good looking brother as you say this young man next door is,” laughed Josie.