CHAPTER VII

THE MEDDLESOME MAJOR CALLS

The jaunt to Linden Heights had consumed a good part of Josie’s afternoon but it had given her food for thought and cheered her up. Nothing so cheered Josie as a problem to solve. Why should the handsome, chilly Miss Fauntleroy give a fictitious address? Why should she be so cross and heartless in her manner with the fraudulent old beggar woman? Not that the beggar women had seemed to mind; on the contrary she had seemed highly amused by the tongue lashing from the proud beauty. Rather a pleasant old beggar woman she seemed. It was rather nice of her not to want to sell Josie the rumpled newspaper. She had seemed really distressed that she should have taken it. That was because she, Josie, had been decent to her. Josie smiled and patted the bulging pocket of her neat sport coat which still held the rumpled journal. No doubt the old woman was a fraud but she was at least a kindly, goodnatured one.

As Josie turned the corner at Meadow Street she could plainly see two persons coming down the steps at No. 11. She was sure that one of them was Major Simpson and the other one the youth who lived in apartment 3, and whose identity was still a mystery to her. However, the problem of who the young man might be troubled Josie very little at that moment. What occupied her thoughts was why should Major Simpson be coming from that apartment house. Could he have been trying to find her whereabouts? If so, had the Burnetts disclosed the fact that she was employed by them, over his head as it were?

Josie had thought for a moment that Major Simpson and the youth were together, but in this she was mistaken. They had merely happened to come down the steps at the same time. The old man proceeded down the street while the young one came towards Josie. He was evidently unaware of her approach, Josie as usual wearing an aura of inconspicuousness that enabled her to pass persons without being noticed. But it so happened that as the young man got within a few feet of the girl he caught her eye. Josie was sure that for the flick of an eyelash there was recognition in his glance. Of course it might have been that he was aware of the fact that she lived in an apartment next to the one occupied by his family. But no! That glance of recognition had something furtive in it. Again she was sure that she had seen the youth before. Something about the spacing of his features was strangely familiar, something about his chin, the contour of his olive cheek.

“Well, time will tell, as Father used to say,” Josie mused, “and in the mean time I must get busy about other things.”

Mrs. Leslie’s manner was, to say the least, highly artificial when she greeted Josie on her return. The lady flushed and fluttered, treating Josie more like a guest than a member of the family.

“Let me take your coat, do,” she insisted.

“No, indeed.”

“Would you like a cup of coffee and some fresh doughnuts?”

“I certainly should! But let me come to the kitchen and attend to myself.”

“Oh no, I’ll bring a tray for you.” So the hostess burdened Josie with attentions, all the time with a strained excitement in her manner.

“I thought I saw Major Simpson coming from this house, just as I came around the corner. Could it have been he? He is Burnett & Burnett’s private detective.”

Mrs. Leslie was not a good dissembler but remembering the policy laid out for her by Major Simpson, she at first pretended she had burnt her hand on the coffee pot and must run put some soda on it and then when Josie repeated her question she feigned not to hear aright.

“Simpkins? Nobody has been here of that name.”

“No, Simpson--Major Simpson--perhaps he has acquaintances in the building. There was no reason why I should jump to the conclusion that he had been here, certainly no personal reason.”

Josie did not push her inquiry because she realized that for some reason or other Mrs. Leslie was concealing something from her in regard to Major Simpson. What it was she could not divine, but the lady’s heightened color and strained, artificial manner meant something besides the usual Saturday baking. Her deliberate misunderstanding of the name of Simpson was too apparent to fool the astute Josie. She came to the conclusion that the old detective had been calling on Mrs. Leslie and for some reason she had been told by him to keep the matter a secret.

“Mysteries and more mysteries!” thought Josie. “I wonder what Father would have said to this.”

As soon as she finished her luncheon of coffee and doughnuts she went to her room, determined to read a little in her leather bound book. She opened the top drawer. A sudden consciousness came to her that someone had been meddling there during her absence. In the first place her beloved book was not as she had placed it--close in the corner, back out--but had evidently been examined by someone and then tossed carelessly back into the drawer.

“Don’t be such an old maid!” Josie admonished herself. “It doesn’t mean a thing. Perhaps Mrs. Leslie had some curiosity about my belongings. It is pardonable for a poor lady who has mighty little to occupy her mind to open up a lodger’s drawer and snoop around a little.”

Wait, what was that? Certainly Mrs. Leslie did not wear heavy gold cuff links, in fact Josie had noted particularly that her landlady’s house dresses were all made with sleeves cut a little below the elbow and that she never wore cuffs. She, then, was not the meddler who had left evidence of his or her presence in Josie’s top drawer in the shape of part of a heavy gold cuff link. Josie picked it up gingerly. There was a large heavily engraved letter S on the flat button.

“If he had left a visiting card for me I could not be more certain that old Major Simpson has been calling,” laughed Josie to herself. “But why? And why is Mrs. Leslie so silent about it? And above all, how am I to act now? One thing sure, I must not let the poor dear lady know that I am on to the fact that she is concealing something from me. I don’t believe Mary is in on this mystery, whatever it is, but I’ll wait until she comes home and test it.”

Josie put the broken link carefully away in her purse and then sat down to do a little necessary mending on her coat, a button loose here and a tiny rip in one of the pockets. She drew forth the twisted afternoon paper, throwing it carelessly on the bed and again she thought of the proud Miss Fauntleroy and her rudeness to the old beggar woman. She heard Mary come in and her mother’s question:

“Did you bring an afternoon paper?”

“Oh, I forgot! I’ll run get you one immediately. I’m so sorry, Mother.”

Josie smiled. Mary always forgot the paper on Saturday afternoon and Mrs. Leslie never forgot to ask her about it.

“I have the early edition,” Josie called from her room. “Don’t go out again, Mary. It’s rather rumpled but I guess I can smooth it out.”

Josie reached for the afternoon paper and began straightening it out just as Mrs. Leslie appeared at the half opened door of the bed room. The girl was astonished to find that there was a parcel of some sort wrapped within the folds of the paper. It dropped out on the bed and then slipped to the floor. Mrs. Leslie stepped forward and stooped to pick it up but Josie, ever quick and agile, was before her. The tissue paper package tore and disclosed a crumpled mass of filmy lace and, gleaming through its folds, a golden mesh purse.

“What is that?” demanded Mrs. Leslie sharply.

“I’m sure I don’t know. It seemed to be wrapped up in the afternoon paper which has been reposing in my pocket all afternoon,” said Josie, coolly. “How it got there I’ll leave you to find out. I must hurry out again as I find I have an important matter to attend to.”

Josie’s quick eye had recognized a Burnett & Burnett tag on the purse and her quicker mind had traveled like lightning back to the time Miss Fauntleroy had angrily twisted the paper and cast it in the old beggar’s basket. Then she remembered how loath the old woman had been to let her buy that particular paper.

She stuffed the parcel of lace in her pocket, placed the delicately wrought mesh bag in her own purse, and without waiting to hear what Mrs. Leslie had to say she hurried into the street and hailed a passing taxi.