CHAPTER IV

JOSIE’S LITTLE BLACK BOOK

“Now I’ve talked too much!” Josie took herself to task after retiring to her room. “Mrs. Leslie has some kind of suspicion concerning me and it is all my own fault. I wonder what my father would have done under the circumstances.”

She took from her top drawer a little leather book; her most valued possession and without which she never traveled. It was a chunky little book, evidently home made. The pages were covered with neatly written lines which, to the uninitiated, looked like so much Greek script. It was in reality a cryptic shorthand invented by Detective O’Gorman and known only to him and his daughter and one other--a certain criminal, Felix Markham. How he came to know this family code is another story altogether. At any rate, in the United States Josie was the only person who could make heads or tails of this writing, as her dear father had gone to that far country where detectives find no work to do, and Markham had fled to China after having executed a daring escape from the penitentiary.

In this little book the detective had inscribed many homely sayings, some original but most of them borrowed from Poor Richard’s Almanac, the Proverbs of Solomon and other like sources. Josie often amused her friends by quoting these bits of wisdom as though her dear father had been responsible for all of them. Also in this book was written much that was interesting and valuable concerning criminals with whom O’Gorman had come in contact; descriptions of their appearance, habits and peculiarities, as well as the lists of their aliases and professions engaged in as blinds.

All of this was interesting reading and Josie never tired of conning over the difficult script. Reading between the lines she caught hints of successes which the noted criminologist was too modest even to put in his diary, although it was written in a shorthand known only to himself and his daughter and was meant for no other eyes.

On this night it was not her father’s successes that interested Josie, but his failures. The last twenty pages of the little book were filled with his failures and analyses of why he had failed, also admonitions to his daughter as to what she should avoid in the way of pitfalls for a detective.

“When you find you have aroused suspicion in the mind of someone as to your real business which it is perhaps expedient to conceal, do not be too quick to allay those suspicions as the person concerned will no doubt be on the lookout to trap you. If, in the course of time, you quietly do or say again the same thing that first aroused the suspicion in the mind of the person and then, being on your guard, make some casual explanation, it will be more convincing than changing too quickly and appearing for that reason rather unnatural. For instance, if, the better to catch a criminal, you have been taking the part of a lowly person, say a dishwasher in a restaurant, and inadvertently you show yourself to be educated--do not immediately revert to slang and double negatives to throw the person to whom you have revealed your culture off the scent, but rather show other bits of learning and then have a plausible story ready to account for a dishwasher knowing something beyond hot suds and drainers and tea towels.”

“There I am!” exclaimed Josie. “I am not sure just what it was that started Mrs. Leslie but I think it was the free and easy gabble about Paris bridges and luxurious lairs. Now I must bring up the subject again and talk some more about the same thing and then give her some kind of song and dance that will sound plausible enough to throw her off the scent. Then I’ll jump back to the subject of bone buttons and linen tape and maybe haul in something about a handsome floor walker at Burnett & Burnett’s.”

Satisfied with the plan, Josie devoutly closed her little book and went peacefully to sleep, wickedly hoping that somebody would do a little shoplifting the next day to keep her from dying of ennui.

Breakfast was hurried and she had little time to talk to Mrs. Leslie. One could not be very tactful nor use much finesse with a mouth full of hot oatmeal porridge. To talk about the crime wave in Paris so early in the morning would be ridiculous. It must keep until evening. Perhaps she was mistaken about Mrs. Leslie having any suspicion of her. Mary was as gentle and lovely as ever and her mother was certainly most considerate and cordial in her insistence that Josie should have another cup of coffee. After all, she had nothing to conceal--that is, nothing that would be to her discredit. It was only that she deemed it wiser to keep to herself her real business in Wakely. Of course if Mrs. Leslie became too suspicious it would be a simple matter to tell her the whole truth.

That morning the girls started to town a little earlier than was their custom. It was Saturday and a half holiday. Mary had some extra typing on hand she was anxious to finish and Josie wanted to interview Mr. Theodore Burnett before the store opened. As they stepped into the public hall of the apartment house they ran into the same beggar of whom Mary had spoken the evening before. The hall was unlighted except for a pale streak of sun that tried to find its way through the dingy glass of the street door but Josie did not need much light to recognize the man as the beggar who sat at the main door of Burnett & Burnett’s. The man began a pleading beggar’s whine and held out his hand to the girls. Unfortunately for him Mrs. Leslie opened her door at that moment to call a last good bye to her daughter and to remind her of some promised errand. The sight of the beggar angered her and she spoke sharply to him:

“Begone sir!” she cried. “It is against all rules of the house to have beggars in the hall.”

“Excuse! Excuse!” and the man bowed humbly, shuffling off with bent back and palsied head. As he passed the irate lady, Josie caught the flash of resentment that glowed in his one eye.

“Oh, Mother, the poor fellow!” said Mary. “I feel so sorry for him and you hurt his feelings terribly.”

“He’d no business in the hall. Perhaps I was a bit hasty. Here, run after him, Mary, and give him this penny. But tell him he mustn’t come back here.”

Mary added a small sum to her mother’s penny and hastening after the man pressed it in his hand. Josie, who was close behind, again caught an expression on the man’s face--a leer of admiration for the pretty young girl with her fresh rosy face and kind blue eyes.

A view of him in broad daylight convinced Josie that he really was the beggar who had the desirable stand at the front entrance to Burnett & Burnett’s and also the realization came to her that she had seen the man before and that it was not as a mendicant.

For the second time since Josie came to Wakely she puzzled her brains over where before she had seen or known a man, this time an old one. She was still in doubt as to the identity of the young man who evidently lived in the apartment next to the Leslies, and now a palsied old beggar was adding to her perplexity.

“I’ll keep an eye on him during the morning and perhaps I’ll remember,” she promised herself.

It was a busy morning but between sales Josie managed to get an occasional glimpse of the one-eyed beggar at the gate. He, too, was doing a thriving business. Josie wondered if the woman at the rear entrance was playing in such good luck as her rival in the front. Once during the morning she had occasion to pass by the back door and could look out at the female newsie. Straggling iron gray hair was blown by the wintry breezes across a round, plump face which Nature had doubtless intended to be wreathed in perpetual smiles and which seemed with difficulty to assume an expression of misery and woe. Her comfortable, well rounded body was arrayed in pitiful rags. Josie determined to study her more closely and accordingly when the store closed she made her exit by the rear door.

“Pa-a-perrr! Pa-a-perr!” quavered the woman in a tone that spoke of utter misery and dejection.

A genial gentleman stopped to buy one.

“Is it the last edition?” he asked.

“Ye-e-ss sirr!” she whined, “the very latest.”

He handed her a quarter of a dollar.

“I haven’t an-y ch-aa-nge, sirr.”

“No change? Well then keep it!” he exclaimed with a note of irritation in his voice.

Saturday was a short day for the employees of Burnett & Burnett’s and Josie determined to use the afternoon in looking up some more residences of her fellow workers. The day was pleasant, with a hint of premature spring in the air; an excellent day for checking up on some of the suburban addresses.

“I wonder if Major Simpson will follow me. Anyhow, I have chosen a balmy afternoon for his jaunt if he decides to take it,” she laughed. “I have a great mind to give him the slip.”

By the simple expedient of going up one elevator and down another Josie eluded the old detective, who was evidently on the lookout for her. She then quickly made her way to the rear exit and was out on the street before the old gentleman realized that the young person in whom he was taking such an unaccountable interest had flown the coop.

“Ding bust it!” he remarked eloquently, “I’ll come up with her yet.”

Miss Fauntleroy was immediately in front of Josie, moving with her accustomed slow grace. The girl was well proportioned and Josie had not realized before how very tall she was. Being of rather a diminutive statute herself, she seemed almost a dwarf by the side of the stately young woman.

“Pa-a-perr, pa-a-perr,” quavered the old woman in an irritating whine.

Miss Fauntleroy stopped and holding out a dime asked for a newspaper. Her voice was singularly hard and cold but the old beggar seemed rather amused as she answered:

“Yes, my prr-r-ty! Here’s your Jou-r-rnal.”

“Give me my change,” demanded the girl haughtily.

“Change? Sur-r-ely you know an old woman like me can’t make change.”

“Well you’ll make it for me or give me back my dime,” said the girl angrily, her voice breaking hoarsely. She snatched the money from the old woman’s hand and rudely twisting and rumpling the paper so that it would be difficult to sell to another customer, she threw it into the basket at the beggar’s feet and then walked proudly away.

While Josie held no brief for beggars of any sort, neither those who begged outright nor those who begged under the guise of selling back number papers or pencils made of scrap lead, still her heart was kind and it tried her sorely to witness the rudeness and direct unkindness of the inconsiderate Miss Fauntleroy.

“Here! I’ll take that rumpled paper,” she said gently, handing the correct change to the old woman. “I can smooth it out and read it on the trolley.” She stooped swiftly and picked up the twisted Wakely Journal.

“No, no, lady! I’ll give you a nice clean pa-perr,” insisted the newsie, reaching eagerly for the one that Miss Fauntleroy had thrown so disdainfully in her basket. But Josie clutched it tightly and was soon lost in the crowd, while the old woman sat dazed and disconsolate, forgetting to cry her wares as the employees trooped forth from Burnett & Burnett’s.