Josie O’Gorman

---

---

“Horrid ain’t de word”, said Aunt Mandy—Chapter VIII.

---

Josie O’Gorman

By
Edith Van Dyne

Author of
The “Mary Louise” Stories, in which
Josie O’Gorman, the Girl Detective,
was a leading character

Frontispiece by
Harry W. Armstrong

The Reilly & Lee Co.
Chicago

CHAPTER I
JOSIE’S FUNNY NOSE

Josie O’Gorman’s appearance was one of her greatest assets. To the general run of young girls who look upon beauty as the one and only attribute necessary for success in life no doubt this statement would sound absurd. Certainly there was little in Josie’s appearance that to the casual observer would have passed muster as an asset. To be sure her sandy hair was abundant and well kept; her complexion, though subject to freckles, smooth and clear and milk-white where the sun could not reach it; her teeth even and pearly; her figure, small but erect with every muscle under the control of the alert mind of the girl; her feet—well, her feet the most scornful flapper might have envied. Even Josie, who was as free from vanity and self-consciousness as any girl living, had much8 satisfaction in her feet which were as smooth and guiltless of imperfections as those of a three-year-old child.

Those good points mentioned were not, however, Josie’s greatest assets. The features that gave Josie rank as one of the most astute female detectives were a pair of colorless, nondescript eyes, that could at the owner’s will take on an expression of absolute stupidity, even imbecility; and a nose that could be described best by the word “blobby.” No wrong-doer, attempting to evade detection, could have any fear of a person whose eyes resembled those of a codfish. As for the blobby nose, it was a nose that made a good foundation for any disguise. Not only did false noses fit on it with ludicrous exactness but Josie had the faculty of controlling that member and forcing it to do her bidding in a manner most surprising. From a mere blob she could wrinkle it into a turned-up nose, or by lifting one nostril and pulling down her upper lip she could change her countenance so that her best friends would have difficulty in recognizing her. This power of nose control was one that she had but recently acquired.

“I always could do things to my eyes,” she9 said to her dear friend Mary Louise, Mrs. Danny Dexter, “but I had always considered my nose a hopeless give-away. I was sure there was not another one like it in all the world, now that my dear father is dead.”

“How did you happen to discover your power over it?” asked Mary Louise, who could not help smiling at her friend’s mention of the father’s nose. The elder O’Gorman had been a famous detective and his shapeless nose had been almost as famous as its owner.

“It was this way: I blame myself and my sensitive vanity for not finding out about it long ago,” laughed Josie. “You see I never looked in a mirror, at least hardly ever. I never liked what I saw there and I saw no use in mortifying myself. Instead of facing the truth about my ugly mug I put it behind me.”

“Your face? That was a great feat. Surely you are some juggler!”

Josie grinned.

“Excuse the Irish break. Anyhow, I looked at myself occasionally only—to see that my hair was parted straight or my hat was not cocked over one ear. It was after that experience I had in Atlanta getting even with that arch fiend,10 Chester Hunt, and bringing the Waller family together that I sat down in front of a mirror one day and looked myself squarely in the face. I was very triumphant over having bested and worsted the handsome Chester; but in spite of my satisfaction there was a kind of sore spot in my heart, because you see, honey, after all I’m nothing but a girl and no matter how indifferent I may seem to things girls have and do I’m not really indifferent at all. I’m just busy—too busy to brood over the things that can’t be helped. But somehow Chester Hunt’s remarks sort of hurt me. He did not scruple to let me know he considered me homely beyond words and he took a real delight in making me feel that it was hard to believe I could be the capable person he had decided I was because my appearance was so against me. I fancy I wouldn’t have minded so much if he himself had not been so extremely handsome. I give you my word, Mary Louise, he was one of the most wonderful looking men I ever saw, and there was nothing in his appearance to give away the black-hearted villainy of him. Well, as I was saying, I sat down in front of the mirror and looked at myself, trying to see myself11 as no doubt the handsome Chester saw me.”

“It’s my nose that is the insurmountable offender!” I exclaimed. “No wonder he thought me so hideous. I wonder if he’d like me any better if I had a turned-up nose.”

With that Josie turned up her nose, giving herself such a ridiculous expression that Mary Louise laughed merrily.

“Well that’s when I found out I could do it. I practiced holding it like this for minutes at the time. Then I discovered I could take on a kind of hare-lip look and in fact could do almost anything that I had a mind to with my despised nose. So you see Chester Hunt has been a great friend to me, unwittingly however. I fancy he’d like to get even with me in some way besides making it possible for me to make faces that disguise my weird beauty. Anyhow, from being a person who used never to look in a mirror, I spent all of my spare time making faces at myself in the glass. What do you think of this one? I held it for two miles the other day and met Captain Lonsdale, who did not recognize me, although he has known me forever.”

“Oh, Josie, what a face! No wonder poor12 Captain Charlie didn’t know you! Who would unless he had been present at the transformation?” Mary Louise gave Josie an affectionate hug, as she spoke.

The girls were seated in the Higgledy Piggledy Shop, which was an industry owned and run by Josie O’Gorman and her two associates, Elizabeth Wright and Irene MacFarlane, and watched over by the guardian angel, Mary Louise Dexter. In the Higgledy Piggledy Shop one found a little of everything and the youthful proprietors prided themselves on never turning down an order, no matter how impossible it might appear. From a small undertaking it had grown to be a business of goodly proportions. Elizabeth Wright was the business manager and also looked after the literary end, writing club papers for the unwary females who had got themselves in for such things and were powerless to deliver the goods. She also did a pretty good business in obituary notices, corrected and typed manuscripts and ran a correspondence course in the art of scenario writing, passing on the knowledge she had picked up during the summer she had spent at Columbia University. Many and varied were the duties13 of Elizabeth, all of which she performed with proficiency.

The lame girl, Irene MacFarlane, had charge of all needle work. At the beginning of the venture Irene had merely been employed by Josie and Elizabeth, giving a few hours a day to the work, but she had proven herself so necessary to the establishment that she had been tendered a full partnership and now every day the brave patient girl wheeled herself to the shop in her invalid’s chair, which she never left; and there she sat mending lace or doing the exquisite embroidery for which the Higgledy Piggledy Shop was famous, or even minding the store when the other partners were out on business. She managed her chair with the ease of an expert bicycle rider, never bumping into furniture or scraping her wheels, but gliding across the floor, weaving her way in and out, with a positive grace of movement.

The Higgledy Piggledy Shop was on the second floor of an old building. In the rear was a small electric elevator, entered from the alley. This had been originally a clumsy dumb-waiter, manipulated by creaking pulleys and ropes, but had been converted to its present state of useful14 beauty by Danny Dexter, who ever strove to serve his darling Mary Louise and her friends. Irene would enter the small lift from the rear through a door just large enough to admit her chair. The door was locked and Irene alone had the key. One touch of a button would send her to the floor above, where the door would automatically open and then she would glide into the shop. It always seemed to the girls a kind of miraculous vision when Irene would so silently appear.

On the day when Josie was showing Mary Louise the control she had gained over what she had hitherto looked upon as a despised and useless feature—at least useless as far as the detective business was concerned in the matter of disguises, although greatly prized as to its ability to detect tell-tale odors—Irene appeared just in time to get the full benefit of Josie’s last and most astounding face.

It was a sad face and a sinister one, the left nostril lifted and the right one compressed; the mouth drawn down at the corners with the under lip protruding loosely.

Irene greeted the girls gaily but stopped embarrassed.

15 “I—I—beg your pardon,” she said falteringly. “I thought for a moment you were Miss O’Gorman.”

Mary Louise laughed delightedly and try as she might Josie could not hold her expression but broke down in hopeless giggles.

“There now, I must practice a lot or I’ll never be able to fool a flea,” she declared. “If my risibles get the better of me there is no use in calling myself a detective.”

Irene looked worried, although she, too, was amused.

“What’s the matter with you, honey?” asked Josie.

“I can’t bear for you to make yourself look that way,” said Irene. “It does not seem right, somehow, to twist one’s features so far from the way God has meant them to be. I love your dear face, Josie, and it gave me an awful turn to see it all out of shape.”

“Bless your dear heart!” exclaimed Josie. “I promise you never to twist it except in the cause of righteousness, unless it is in practicing. Of course I must practice a lot to perfect my detective make-up.”

“You make me think of Dr. Jekyll and Mr.16 Hyde. I only hope making yourself look so frightful won’t make you sad,” said Irene. “Speaking of sad looks, I have found a person to conduct our tea room—if you others like her as much as I do—but she is awfully sad. I don’t blame her. No doubt she has had her troubles—is still having them, but she is very industrious. Indeed she has need to be since two little brothers are entirely dependent on her for support.”

The tea room was one of the Higgledy Piggledy ventures that brought in more money than any branch of the business, but gave the girls more trouble than all of the other industries put together. Elizabeth Wright’s talents did not lie in a domestic direction, Irene because of her lameness was handicapped, and Josie was too often absent on detective business to give any time to it. There had been times when the Higgledy Piggledies had almost determined to abandon the tea room, but it seemed like flying in the face of Providence to give up the steady income that accrued from it.

“Tell us about this sad person,” urged Josie.

“Her name is Ursula Ellett and she came from Louisville, Kentucky. She is well educated17 and really a lady. She must be about twenty-two, but she seems much older because she has had so much trouble. She went to see Uncle Peter Conant on legal business and it was with him that I met her. Her father died when she was very young and the little brothers, Ben and Philip, were tiny tots. Her mother married again, then died two years ago and the stepfather, who is the root of all evil and source of all woe, wished to put them in charge of a trained nurse, a most impossible person with whom Ursula refused to live or to allow the little brothers to live. The stepfather, by some dishonest juggling, has got possession of the estate which belonged to the Elletts and refuses to do a thing for Ursula or the boys unless they live with him. His name is Cheatham, which seems to fit him to a dot.”

“How did she happen to come to Dorfield?” asked Josie.

“Her mother’s people came from here, and while there are none of them left Ursula felt drawn to the place because of what her mother had told of her childhood here and the kindly neighbors. The public schools of Dorfield have a good name and she wants to educate Ben and18 Philip. She loves Louisville but could not stay in the same city with Cheatham, who busied himself making things unpleasant for her.

“I believe she is just the girl we want for the tea room. She has managed a household, understands servants and serving, and she is really a fine cook. What do you say to looking her over?”

“Sure, let’s give her the job,” agreed Josie. “Of course Elizabeth must give her vote before we can settle on it.”

“Certainly, but I’m pretty sure that what our sane Irene says is safe for the Higgledy Piggledies,” laughed Mary Louise. “I fancy Ursula Ellett will take charge of the tea room at an early date.”

CHAPTER II
URSULA TELLS HER STORY

“Why didn’t you tell us how beautiful she was?” Josie asked Irene after the partners had looked Ursula Ellett over, approved of her and engaged her on the spot.

“I did not like to because I did not know whether you would think her as beautiful as I do.”

“Thought you had a corner on taste, eh?” laughed Josie.

“Not that. But you know tastes differ so. Uncle doesn’t think she is beautiful, merely sweet looking and Aunt Hannah says if it wasn’t for her eyes she would call her positively homely. They say she has no figure.”

“No figure! With that willowy slenderness!” exclaimed Elizabeth. “Why she looks like a wood nymph!”

Ursula Ellett was not as old as Irene had thought, in fact she had just reached her20 majority. But the cares that had fallen on her young shoulders had added to her years and the troubles and anxieties had given a gravity to her countenance that was pitiable to behold. Her eyes were violet with dark pansy markings, her lashes long and thick with brows delicately bowed, her nose of patrician perfection. Her mouth needed only smiles to make it beautiful, but it was too sad at the present, with the corners drooping and making lines of discontent that were fast becoming permanent. Her hair was dark, almost black, but with a coppery hue.

It meant much to Ursula to be taken in by the Higgledy Piggledies, and it meant much to the partners to have a capable person to take hold of their tea room and run it with the order necessary for its success.

“Where did you learn to do things so well?” Josie asked their new manager, as she moved quickly around the tea room getting everything to rights in preparation for the afternoon. It was the custom for many of the young people of Dorfield to drop in at the Higgledy Piggledy, which had established a reputation for cinnamon toast and waffles baked on an electric iron.

“Training servants,” answered Ursula. “I21 have had dozens to break in at my home in Louisville. My stepfather was very difficult to please and my endeavor was to give him no just cause of complaint. I had to learn to do all kinds of things about the house well so that I could teach others. Mr. Cheatham was constantly dismissing the servants and then my work was all to be done over. I like this kind of work very much and do hope I can give satisfaction.” Ursula’s lip trembled as she spoke.

“Give satisfaction! Why, my dear girl, we think we have found a treasure in you. We only hope we can be the ones to give satisfaction. Please feel that we are your friends. In the first place, in our shop what Irene says goes. She doesn’t often make suggestions, being one of the most modest of human beings, but when she does we all of us agree with her. I have never known Irene to make a mistake in people. She has put me right on several persons.”

Josie then recounted to Ursula the tale of the Markles, a perfidious couple who had almost gotten away with all of Mary Louise’s wedding presents, and she gave Irene the credit for being the first one of all of the friends of the22 little bride to realize there was something shady about Felix and Hortense Markle.

“She always knows when people are the right sort, too,” added Josie, “and she gave you a mighty good name.”

“I am very happy at that,” said Ursula, a smile flashing for a moment over her sad countenance. “My little brothers are quite in love with Miss MacFarlane.”

“Oh, none of that, please!” interrupted Josie. “Don’t ‘Miss’ any of us. We are Irene and Elizabeth and Josie and you are Ursula.”

“All right!” blushed Ursula, “but I did not want to be too familiar. Anyhow the boys are very fond of Irene. Mrs. Conant is kind to them too and has asked them to make themselves at home in her yard. Now that school is over it is quite a problem to keep the little fellows happy.”

“How old are they?”

“Ben is ten and Philip, six.”

“Why, they are old enough to help around the shop. Let them come here and they can be our delivery boys. We are always needing a boy to run errands.”

“That would be wonderful, but they are such23 little fellows that I am afraid they would be in the way.”

“Children are never in my way, and you know how Irene feels about them. Elizabeth is fine to boys. She doesn’t take much stock in girls, having been brought up in a house full of them. Let me talk it over with my partners first, though.”

The partners were more than willing and the next day when Ursula came to work she came hand in hand with her two brothers. Ben and Philip were delighted with the idea of holding jobs, but more than anything were they pleased at the thought of being near “The Lady in the Chair,” which was the name they had given Irene.

“I’m the chief office boy an’ Phil is my clerk,” announced Ben. “I’m gonter do all the work an’ he’s gonter trot along an’ watch me. He’s just six an’ I’m in my ’leventh year. I’m gonter grow up an’ take care of Sister an’ buy her a ring an’ some beads an’ a Stutz racer. I’m gonter send Phil to college too, an’ buy him some long pants.”

“An’ I’m gonter save up my money that I make watchin’ you work an’ buy The Lady in24 the Chair a all-day sucker,” announced Philip.

There could be no two opinions concerning those Ellett boys. They were beautiful children—their loveliness almost unearthly. Ben was fair and sturdy, large for his years, with the wide blue eyes and yellow hair of a Viking child. Philip was more like his sister Ursula, slender and patrician, with dusky hair and eyes like dark pools in a forest where the blue sky is reflected unexpectedly. The boys adored first their sister, whom they considered the most wonderful person in the world, and then each other, Ben ever protecting his little brother and Philip ever looking up to Ben as a superior being.

They were natural, normal boys and for that reason not at all saintly. Ursula felt she could trust them as far as honesty was concerned but was always very anxious about them when she had to be away from them in the pursuit of a livelihood. This arrangement with the Higgledy Piggledies was an ideal one. There she could have an eye ever on her charges and she was sure the boys would be as good as boys could be, which of course is not perfect.

Faithfully they delivered parcels for the Higgledy25 Piggledy shop, Viking Ben carrying the burdens and Phil walking just two steps behind his brother, admiring his prowess with loving eyes. Faithfully they brought back money from the customers carefully pinned in Ben’s pocket and painfully counted out by that future business man.

Josie got a knapsack in which small parcels could be securely strapped, as often the articles to be delivered were quite valuable such as old lace mended by Irene or rare linen laundered by Josie or manuscript corrected or copied by Elizabeth. The boys were instructed to return immediately and report at the shop after making a delivery. This they did with a promptness surprising in such youngsters.

“It isn’t when they are busy that I feel anxious about them,” sighed Ursula, “but when they are idle. Please hunt up more duties for them.”

“Poor dears! Don’t they eat up all the cold waffles? What more could we demand?” laughed Josie. “Don’t you remember how sorry we always felt about the cold waffles, girls?”

“Yes indeed, the Higgledy Piggledy garbage pail always mortified me,” said Elizabeth. “No26 matter how carefully one plans there are always cold waffles to be disposed of. Even my mother, who is an excellent manager, I can tell you, has never mastered the cold waffle problem.”

“Well, it is no problem here,” smiled Ursula. “In fact there is nothing left over since you dear girls insisted upon my giving my boys their supper here. I wish I could tell you what it means to me, having this place and being able to see Ben and Philip all the time.”

“Well I wish you knew what it means to us to have our tea room run like a smart New York shop, with never a hitch and more and more persons praising it and bringing their friends here to treat them—to say nothing of the empty garbage pail. If things don’t stop prospering so we are going to have to get new quarters, girls. Do you realize that?” queried Josie.

“Oh, but please don’t let’s leave the dear old shop,” begged Elizabeth. “These have been the happiest months of my whole life, I truly believe. If we have to expand, let’s expand upward or downward. Why not see about the rooms above or the rickety old store below?”

“Turn out the cleaners and dyers below, who27 certainly smell most vilely and increase our insurance rates one hundred per cent and make a kind of lunch club down there! Great scheme!” exclaimed Josie. “What does our sage Irene think?”

“I think it is a fine idea but it would need a good deal of capital to start such an undertaking,” said Irene thoughtfully. “Let’s go slowly until we find someone with capital to invest.”

“I wish I could command my own little fortune,” blushed Ursula. “I haven’t much—at least I don’t think I have, but what I own I have no more power over than if it wasn’t mine. My stepfather, Mr. Cheatham, has entire control of everything connected with my father’s estate.”

“Can’t you go to law about it?” asked Elizabeth.

“I—I—am helpless with him. He holds it over me that if I make any trouble he will claim my boys. He says he has the right to keep them from me. There is some quirk in the law that he quotes. I am sure I don’t understand it but I am afraid to test it. I’d give up all the money in the world rather than have my Ben and28 Philip under the influence of such a man.”

“Haven’t you any relations?” asked Josie.

“Only Uncle Ben Benson, my mother’s brother, and I don’t know where he is. He was very much put out with my poor little mother when she married Mr. Cheatham. He left Louisville and we have never heard anything from him. I loved Uncle Ben and he loved me. I felt he was hard on Mother and told him so, although Heaven knows it almost killed me for her to marry such a man. But she was young when my father died, young and so beautiful. Mr. Cheatham evidently had some influence over her that we could not understand.”

“What is his standing in the community?” asked Josie.

“He is not trusted or respected but he is so plausible that he has a certain following. He makes an excellent impression on strangers and Louisville is growing so, with such a large number of new people settling there every year, that it is quite a simple matter for Mr. Cheatham to worm himself into the good graces of the new and wealthy people. He is clever and has an engaging manner until you know him. Then you hate his manner as you hate him.”

29 “Does he know where you are?”

“I think not, but I am not sure. He always finds out everything he wants to know. He doesn’t care where I am, just so I let him alone. The thing that determined my leaving home was not only his threatening to bring this woman, this Miss Fitchet, to the house, but an awful scene we had with him when he tried to whip my Ben. It was because of some trifling bit of naughtiness. Ben turned on the hydrant to which the hose was attached and could not get it turned off.”

“All boys like to play in water,” laughed Josie. “I like it myself.”

“He began to beat him unmercifully and little Philip rushed in and bit him on the leg and I—I’m not ashamed to tell you that I took a hand in the fight myself, although it was in the front yard of our home on one of the principal old residential streets of Louisville. I turned the hose on the wretch and he got it full in the face. I am sure we looked like a movie comedy; but he left off beating Ben.”

“Good for you!” laughed Josie.

“We left then and I have never seen him again. I took the boys to a hotel and got a30 lawyer to go see him and try and get an allowance from him but he refused any financial help. He said we would be taken care of as long as we would stay under his roof and no longer. I could not stand the thought of ever having to see him again and so I left Louisville. He thought we would live with some old friends who are at Peewee Valley, near Louisville, but I came to Dorfield, and oh, how glad I am I chose this peaceful spot!”

Ursula beamed happily on her employers. Already the girl had a different expression. The corners of her mouth were lifting and the pained look in her pansy eyes had given place to one of peace and trust.

“How about Uncle Ben Benson? Don’t you fancy he’ll come rolling in one day with his coat lined with thousand dollar bills and a potato sack full of gold nuggets?” asked Elizabeth. “Uncles in the manuscripts I correct always come home rich and generous.”

“I wouldn’t care much about the nuggets and coat lining, if he would only come home or write to me and let me know he is alive and well and no longer bears a grudge against me for standing up for my poor little mother. I tried to let31 him know when she died but my letter came back to me after having followed him around to all kinds of out-of-the-way places. Sometimes I am afraid he is dead.”

“I’ll be bound he is not. Probably he is working away at some sort of business that is going to bring in oodles of money,” insisted Elizabeth.

“Perhaps,” mused Ursula, “but in the meantime I had better get the waffle batter mixed and the cinnamon toast under way, because the hungry patrons will be pouring in soon.”

CHAPTER III
A RUSH ORDER FOR DOLLS

The weeks rolled by. The Higgledy Piggledies prospered. Many waffles and much cinnamon toast were devoured by the elite of Dorfield. Each partner was occupied in her especial line but often everyone would have to lend a hand at afternoon tea time.

School opened and the diminutive delivery boys were forced to relinquish their jobs during school hours, but afternoon always found them at the shop ready for any kind of work their gentle employers could find for them. Proudly they held up their heads at being able to help Sister. Ben even learned to bake waffles on the electric iron and was what Elizabeth called, quoting from real estate advertisements, “an extra added feature” to the attractions of the tea room. Philip learned to wait on the tables, never dropping or spilling a thing.

“So much for the Montessori method,” said33 Josie. “I believe carrying soup without spilling it is the especial triumph of their system of training. You told me the boys had been to a Montessori school, did you not, Ursula?”

“Yes, that was one of the times when I had my way in spite of Mr. Cheatham.”

Irene had made the boys little linen aprons and caps and wonderfully charming they looked, with their flushed and eager faces, as they seriously and conscientiously served the guests.

“The boys at school try to tease me for doin’ it,” Ben confessed to Josie, “but I jes’ tell ’em that Alfred the Great had to mind the cakes an’ what a king ain’t above doin’ I ain’t either—only ol’ Alfred let the cakes burn an’ I don’t never let my waffles get mor’n a golden brown. I reckon kings ain’t much account when it comes to head work. It takes head work to do things ’zackly right.”

“It certainly does,” laughed Josie. “It is wonderful to find that out when you are a boy, Ben, because some persons get to be old as old can be and never know it. If you bake waffles as well as they can be baked, when that is the job before you, it will be easier to tackle the bigger job when it comes to you. I remember a34 story I heard a lecturer tell once that always has stayed with me.”

“Please tell it to me,” begged Ben, who could not decide which to love the more, the “Lady in the Chair” or Josie. He had almost decided on Josie, since Philip could go on caring for Irene above all others besides Sister. So Josie told this story:

“Well, this gentleman, who was a great preacher and lecturer, said when he was a little boy his father, who was also a noted divine, drew him to him one day when he was in his study and with his arm around him said: ‘My boy, have you thought what you would like to be when you grow to manhood?’ ‘Yes, Father! I want to be a hack driver.’ His father paused for a moment evidently somewhat nonplused at the strange ambition of his son, then he said earnestly: ‘All right, my boy, but mind you, be the best hack driver in town.’”

“Oh I see what you mean. Well, I reckon I’m the best waffle baker in town already—that is, the best boy waffle baker, and I’ll jes’ keep on bein’ an’ tell the fellows what tease me to go swallow themselves.”

“Exactly!” laughed Josie, “but it might35 be more tactful to ask them to come swallow some waffles.”

“Gee, no! That wouldn’t ever do. I ain’t sayin’ I can bake waffles fast enough to fill up boys. They are reg’lar rat holes for emptiness.”

One afternoon, several weeks before Christmas, the Higgledy Piggledies were especially busy, an order for dressed dolls having come in that had to be filled immediately. Dressing dolls was one of the things they had not been called on to do before, but if dolls had to be dressed they must be dressed and the partners made it a rule never to turn down any form of order.

“We’ll send an S. O. S. for our reserves,” said Josie. “And then the faithful shall have to stay on and work overtime. It’s Saturday, fortunately, and we can sleep late to-morrow.”

Ursula proved an able assistant, being very clever at fashioning the miniature garments.

“I always loved to dress dolls,” she said, “but haven’t done it for years and years. Of course, Ben and Philip did not want dolls.”

“I’d of wanted one,” declared Philip. “Nobody never asked me didn’t I!” He had drawn a stool up close to his sister’s knee and watched her with adoring and wondering eyes as she36 fashioned a tiny ruffled apron for a blue-eyed beauty with a saucy turned-up nose and yellow hair. “I wisht you’d let me hold that dolly until you finish her dress.”

“Aw, sissy!” jeered Ben. “I wouldn’t let the boys catch me playin’ dolls.”

“I ain’t a sissy,” objected Philip. “I’m all time seein’ fathers wheelin’ their kids out on Sundays. One time I peeked in a window back in Louisville an’ I saw a man a-huggin’ an’ a-kissin’ his baby an’ playin’ with it jes’ like girls do doll babies. What’s the reason that boys that’re goin’ to grow up to be big mens can’t play doll babies as much as men can play with their own babies made out of meat? I betcher if Mr. Cheatham had played with doll babies some he wouldn’t of ’spised little boys so much when he got growed up.”

The argument being unanswerable, Ben did not attempt to answer it, but satisfied himself by asserting it was sissy all the same to play dolls. Philip looked longingly at the blue-eyed beauty but made no further request to be allowed to hold it, although the young dressmakers encouraged him to practice being a father all he wished. He merely sat and watched the fashioning37 of the dainty garments, ever on the alert to pick up dropped spools of thread or wait on the busy seamstresses.

Mary Louise had come in to help and Laura Hilton and Lucile Neal. Edna Barlow had promised to give her Saturday afternoon to the rush order and Jane Donovan had missed a fashionable tea, so that she, too, might have a finger in the doll pie. Some of the girls had worked all day, not even going home for luncheon but having what Josie called a “pick-up” at the shop.

“A gross of dolls to be dressed is no idle jest,” exclaimed Elizabeth, “not meaning to fall into poetry, so don’t anybody accuse me of lisping in numbers. What do you think of my flapper?” She held up a doll in a fringed skirt and slipover sweater with neat collar and cuffs, bobbed hair, rakish hat and even cleverly contrived gaiters unbuttoned according to the last cry in flapperdom.

There was an outcry of approval from the workers.

“One doesn’t have to use a microscope to see my stitches, but I do think my doll is cute,” declared Elizabeth.

“Cute is a silly word to use for her,” laughed38 Mary Louise. “To my mind she has real literary value.”

“I want to dress one to look like an old-fashioned grandmother, now,” said Elizabeth, “but we haven’t any black silk. I want her to frown on the flapper.”

“What did I tell you? Elizabeth always has to bring literature into life, even into the dressing of dolls. I’ll go get some black silk suitable for grandmothers for all time,” cried Mary Louise, jumping up and dropping her thimble and spool of cotton, which little Philip quickly restored, thereby gaining a kiss from Mary Louise, to whom all children appealed.

“I’ll go instead of you,” suggested Ursula. “I have a few other purchases to make. It is very cold and you have a little cough.”

It was agreed that Ursula should do the shopping. Ben also had to go out to deliver some linen Josie had laundered, as well as some other parcels.

The girls settled themselves again, working rapidly, each one endeavoring to outdo the other in fashioning clever and out-of-the-way costumes—putting in the literary touch according to Mary Louise.

39 “This is quite like old times,” said Laura Hilton. “This is the same crowd we had when we were working on Mary Louise’s wedding clothes.”

“Except for that terrible Hortense Markle,” shuddered Jane Donovan.

“She didn’t seem terrible on that morning, however,” said Edna Barlow. “I thought she was the loveliest person I had ever seen, and do you remember the song she sang as she embroidered the rose?”

“Yes, it was ‘Gather Ye Rosebuds While Ye May,’ and I also remember she embroidered a faded place on the edge of one petal. I couldn’t help hating her for doing it, too,” said Irene. “It seemed so cynical. You remember she declared it was because the song suggested it to her. She might have put a worm in the heart of the rose if suggestion was anything.”

“Well, well, poor Hortense! She loved her Felix anyhow,” sighed Mary Louise, who had a hard time being persuaded that anyone was really wicked. “Let’s change the subject. Don’t you think Miss Ellett—Ursula—is lovely?”

“She is indeed!” from all of the girls.

40 “Where on earth did you make the find?”

Then the story of Ursula and her misfortunes had to be recounted.

“Well, I call her pretty spunky,” said Lucile.

“And aren’t the little boys precious?” put in Mary Louise. “Did Philip go with Ben?”

“No!” answered Josie, “Ben went alone; he thought it was too cold for Philip. He must have gone with Ursula.”

Ursula returned from her shopping expedition. An unwonted pallor had spread over her face and her mouth was drooping at the corners as it had when she first came to the Higgledy Piggledy Shop.

“Here is the black silk,” she said. Her voice had a strange tonelessness. Josie looked up quickly at her friend. The other girls seemed not to notice the change in the girl.

“What is it, Ursula?” Josie asked following her to the rear of the shop.

“What is what?”

“Now, of course, Ursula, if something has happened that you don’t want to mention to me, it is your own business; but I want you to understand that if it is anything I can assist you in I am ready.”

41 Ursula looked into Josie’s honest face and hesitated a moment.

“Somehow everything is so wonderful and peaceful and happy up here with the Higgledy Piggledies that I can’t bear to bring any troubles among you. I haven’t a real trouble but just a nameless dread.”

“Out with it then! If you name it perhaps we can dispel it. The girls can’t hear us talking back here—and besides they are chattering so they couldn’t make out our conversation if we shouted.”

Ursula, however, did not shout but only gasped:

“Miss Fitchet is in Dorfield!”

“You mean the woman—the nurse—your stepfather wanted to have live in your home as housekeeper?”

“Yes! Oh Josie, she is a terrible person and as unscrupulous as the worst character in fiction! I feel she is in Dorfield for some evil purpose. I can’t imagine just why, but her being here depresses me so I can hardly bear life.”

“You mean she may work some ill on you or your brothers? But what could she do?”

42 “I can’t tell. Mr. Cheatham already has all the money we should have and—oh, Josie, I just can’t tell what it is but—but—” and here the poor girl burst into tears.

Josie drew her into her own bedroom, which was a small cubby hole tucked away in the rear of the shop.

“Now, now, you poor, dear thing!” Josie could be remarkably tender, considering she was such a determined and relentless little detective. Her voice now had a motherly ring. “You mustn’t feel so despondent over a thing like this. I don’t know what you dread—”

“I don’t know myself.”

“Well, whatever it is I can promise you that I am here to see you through. Tell me what was this Fitchet person doing?”

“I think she was following me, because I saw her several times as I went in and out of shops. She was heavily veiled, but her face isn’t what gives her away. I’d know her figure anywhere, under any disguise. She is quite stout, with abnormally small feet, and always carries her head a little on one side and she has a peculiar way of walking, never keeping on a straight line but unconsciously zigzagging.”

43 “Why, bless my soul! You’d make a good detective,” laughed Josie. “I can actually see the person from your description. Now I’ll go out and take Captain Charlie Lonsdale into my confidence and have him keep an eye on the person. He is chief of police, you know, and my very good friend. How old is Fitchet?”

“About thirty-five, I should say. She is a trained nurse and Mr. Cheatham had her nurse my poor little mother in her last illness. Thank goodness the boys did not have to know her. I sent them to friends in Peewee Valley during Mother’s illness.

“Oh, she is horrible, and such a liar and so unkind! I couldn’t begin to tell you of all the despicable things she is capable of doing and saying.”

“Well, never mind thinking about such things, my dear. You wash your face now and calm yourself. It is such a cold day I am sure there will be nothing doing in the tea room this afternoon. Why don’t you get the boys and go home and have a nice little cozy time away from the old Higgledy Piggledy?”

“And leave you girls with all those dolls to finish? Indeed, my dear Josie, I’m not made44 of that kind of stuff. I’ll be with you in a minute.”

“I might have known it,” smiled Josie. “You are not of the deserter type. After all you would be better off here with us. I believe I’ll keep you all night. There is always plenty of room in the Higgledy Piggledy for visitors.”

CHAPTER IV
LOST AND FOUND

In a few moments Ursula was back at work on the dolls, all trace of tears banished from her pretty face. Josie was preparing to go out, declaring she must purchase a pot of glue—that she could not dress dolls without glue. In reality, she was going to call on the chief of police. Ben came running in, cheeks rosy, eyes shining and pockets bulging with money collected from patrons to whom he had delivered parcels.

“Sis, where’s Phil?” he cried, “I got a pink sucker for him.”

“Philip! Why, I thought he was with you,” said Ursula, looking up from her work.

“No, he didn’t go with me. It was so cold an’ he was so stuck on that doll baby. I reckon he’s up in the tea room. Phil, oh Phil!” he called.

There was no answer. Irene was sure he had gone with his sister and Mary Louise thought he had gone with Ben.

46 “Maybe he went home,” suggested Ben. The Elletts lived in a tiny apartment across the street from Mr. and Mrs. Conant.

“But he knew we were to have tea here,” objected Ursula, who had turned deathly pale. “But maybe you had better go see, Ben, and oh, please hurry!”

“Sure I will, Sister, you needn’t get scairt. Phil ain’t far away. I reckon he’ll turn up before I get to the corner an’ I’ll have the run for nothin’—but I ain’t mindin’.”

“Dear Ben!” Ursula smiled on the sturdy boy, in spite of the nameless terror that possessed her soul in regard to the little brother.

“If only I didn’t know that Fitchet was in Dorfield!” Ursula whispered to Josie.

“Well, maybe it’s a good thing you do know it,” said Josie. “Everybody turn in and give a good hunt through the shop.”

Mary Louise and Elizabeth, with the other girls helping, had already looked high and low, under the bed in Josie’s room, behind an antique high-boy for sale in the shop, and had even shaken the draperies lying across a table and peeped in a carved Florentine chest.

At first it was more or less a game all were47 playing, as they were sure the little fellow was somewhere in the shop, but as a thorough search did not reveal him, the matter began to take on a more serious tone and the game was changed.

Without a word, Josie hurried to her old friend, Chief Lonsdale. Quickly she told him her errand.

“Stout woman, about thirty-five, abnormally small feet, always carries her head on one side and has a way of zigzagging when she walks.”

“You have seen her then?” laughed the chief.

“No, but that is the way Ursula Ellett describes her.”

“What color hair?”

“She didn’t say, but you know and I know and the wig maker knows that the color of hair doesn’t cut much ice. Anyhow, please keep your eyes open for this person, who goes by the name of Fitchet at home and is a trained nurse.”

The chief promised and rang for a plain clothes man to get immediately on the job, while Josie hurried back to the Higgledy Piggledy Shop.

48 Ben had returned and reported no sign of his little brother at their home. Darkness had set in and snow had begun to fall like a fine powder. Ursula sat like a statue, dolls piled around her. She looked up as Josie entered and tried to smile. Josie reported that she had set the police on the track of Fitchet and if it could be possible that she had anything to do with the disappearance of little Philip she would be found forthwith.

“What could she want with him?” Josie asked. “Not that he isn’t wholly desirable and lovely, but would that be anything to the type of woman Miss Fitchet seems to be?”

“I don’t know, but Mr. Cheatham is capable of any villainy and not above any small meanness. I must get out on the street and help hunt my darling,” cried Ursula.

“No, my dear, you must stay right here. It is very cold and you are so wrought up you could do no good. The boy will be found in no time and you must be ready to hold him in your arms when he gets back,” declared Josie.

“I’ll go mad waiting here, doing nothing,” wailed Ursula.

“Well, do something then,” suggested the49 practical Josie. “Put the dolls that have been dressed in their boxes and pile them up in the back of the shop. All on that table are done.”

“I didn’t quite finish the school girl I was dressing,” said Ursula, beginning mechanically to sort out the dressed dolls. “I mean the one little Philip liked so much. Why, I can’t find her! Where can she be? I left a needle sticking in her apron. She must be in this pile—No, she is gone! Strange!”

“Well, there is one thing that is not gone,” said Josie suddenly making a dive under the table where the young seamstresses had been so busy plying their needles, “and that’s Phil’s muffler and mittens. And here’s his cap! Bless me, if there isn’t his overcoat under that pile of scraps!”

Ursula caught the little red mittens and held them to her aching heart.

“Philip! Philip! My precious baby!” she moaned.

Josie straightened up and smiled down on Ursula.

“Did you girls look in every crack and cranny of the shop and tea room?”

“Every one,” declared Elizabeth, who was50 preparing to go out on the street and aid in the search for the lost child.

“Are you sure?”

“I can’t think of any spot we have not searched,” answered Mary Louise, whose eyes were brimming over in sympathy for the sorrowing Ursula.

Josie stood in the middle of the shop and into her eyes came the strange dull look she often had when she was “picking up a scent” as it were.

“Philip missing—also the blue-eyed, yellow-haired doll he admired so much,” Josie muttered.

“Ye-es—an’ I went an’ called him a sissy,” sobbed Ben, who suddenly realized that things looked pretty serious.

“He wouldn’t go out in the cold, hunting his sister or brother, without his overcoat and mittens,” Josie murmured. Then she lost the strange, dull look in her eyes and, giving a short laugh, she snapped: “That kid is in this Higgledy Piggledy Shop!”

“Well, he must have made himself mighty little,” said Mary Louise. “I’m going home and get Danny. He’s working on some blue prints this afternoon. Danny will help us. Irene, if51 you come now I can take you home. I’ll bring my car up the alley. It is too blizzardy for you to think of going home in your chair.”

Irene could let herself down the little dumb-waiter, converted into an elevator, and when Mary Louise would bring her car close up in the alley the lame girl would by the aid of crutches swing herself from chair to car.

“Oh, thank you, my dear,” replied Irene, “but I can’t think of going until Philip is found. The snow is so dry I am sure I can get my chair through it. You go and get Danny, though. I know he will be helpful.”

At the mention of Irene’s going, Josie walked to the little door which opened on the elevator shaft. As she started to open it Mary Louise called to her:

“Irene is not going yet, Josie!” thinking that Josie was preparing to assist the lame girl.

“I have an idea she is going pretty soon,” Josie answered. She flung open the door and then began to laugh.

“Come here, Ursula! All of you come here!” she called softly.

The girls and Ben hurried to the rear of the store, Ursula running like the wind. Lying on52 the floor of the tiny elevator was little Philip. He was fast asleep and clasped in his arms was the blue-eyed, fluffy-haired doll with the ruffled apron, Ursula’s needle sticking in it. It was lucky it had stuck in the apron and did not find its way into little Philip.

The child made a beautiful picture at which the girls gazed breathless.

“Poor lamb, he’s playing papa,” said Josie softly and Philip stirred in his sleep, restless from the light turned on him, and then he opened his violet eyes.

“I ain’t a sissy, Ben,” he declared, “but this little doll baby had the tummy ache an’ I hadter take her off an’ put her to sleep. She likes this little bitsy house an’ I reckon The Lady in the Chair ain’t a mindin’ if I borrow it from her.”

When everything settled down and the Higgledy Piggledy Shop was cleared of its visitors and helpers and Josie was left alone she got Chief Lonsdale on the telephone.

“Hello, Chief,” she said, “the little boy is found and the fat woman with the little feet and head on one side had nothing to do with his disappearance, but Captain, I wish you would have Clancy look her up all the same and kind of keep53 an eye on her while she stays in Dorfield. You can do that for me, cannot you, Captain?”

“All right!” boomed the captain. “What you say goes.”

CHAPTER V
URSULA WRITES A LETTER

The Christmas rush came on the Higgledy Piggledies with such force that the fright about little Philip was soon banished from all their minds.

“I may have been mistaken about Miss Fitchet,” Ursula confessed. “That woman I saw may not have been she. I dread her so that I can’t help thinking about her. I may have fancied a resemblance.”

“So you may,” said Josie solemnly. “Anyhow you have not been worried by her and the chances are she will never turn up again, even if the person you saw was Miss Fitchet.”

With the help of Captain Lonsdale, Josie had come to the conclusion that the dreaded nurse had been in Dorfield, but for what purpose the detective put on the case had not been able to discover. At any rate she had left in a day or so and had not returned.

“Probably she was here just to satisfy the55 curiosity of herself and her employer,” Josie decided. “I hope she will stay away now.”

The girl detective said nothing to Ursula about the information gained by the police concerning Fitchet. It was meager and not very satisfying and if Ursula had begun to feel that she had been mistaken and had only fancied she had seen the woman, so much the better for Ursula. Certainly the trained nurse had a perfect right to visit Dorfield and even to go heavily veiled if she had a mind to.

Josie regretted, in a way, that Ursula had so entirely cut herself off from Louisville and her girlhood friends. She had, in a measure, flitted from her old home and left the situation in the hands of an unscrupulous man. No doubt he was making the most of the power he had thereby gained.

“Suppose letters for you come to Mr. Cheatham. What directions did you leave about forwarding them?” she asked Ursula.

“It would do no good to leave directions. Mr. Cheatham would see to it that nothing I want would ever reach me. There is no way to get satisfaction of my stepfather. I realized that and so I left. If I can just be allowed to keep56 my darlings with me and bring them up without his contaminating presence, that is all I ask,” said Ursula.

“In what way could he contaminate the boys?”

Ursula considered—and answered:

“In the way a wicked person could influence impressionable children—by making fun of high ideals; mocking at religion; applauding any clever evasion of the truth and then flying into a rage at the slightest excuse and whipping the boys if they happen to do something that annoyed him for the time being, although that same action might at a former period have brought forth commendation. I have heard him, in all seriousness, tell my little brothers that the greatest crime of all was to break the eleventh commandment, which is: ‘Thou shalt not get found out.’ There is a sturdiness about Ben that usually resisted his influence, still he is nothing but a little boy and was not always proof against Mr. Cheatham’s wiles and cleverness. As for poor little Philip, he actually was fond of the man at times and I believe Mr. Cheatham had a spark of affection for him, but nothing could be worse than to have such a man care for you. He is dishonorable,57 unscrupulous and vacillating in everything but villainy.”

“I thought you said both of the boys hated and feared him.”

“So they did usually, but Philip is such a baby and an ice cream cone had a marvelous effect on the poor kiddy—that and a few gentle joking words.”

“Have you never communicated with any friends in Louisville since you left?”

“I have very few friends,” and Ursula flushed painfully. “I have for so many years been so taken up with my sick mother and the children, and then Mr. Cheatham has in some underhand way cut me off from what intimates I might have had. The Trasks, at Peewee Valley, are the only real friends I own.”

“And the Trasks—have you written them?”

“No. You see I knew Mr. Cheatham would take it for granted they would keep in touch with me and would worm out of them all they knew concerning me and so I simply could not put them in the uncomfortable position of having connived with me in leaving as I did.”

“Is Mrs. Trask a young woman?”

“About fifty, I think.”

58 “Any children?”

“Two—a daughter and a son.”

“Are they about your age?”

“Anita is my age and Teddy is several years older.”

“Do you think it is quite fair to keep your friends in ignorance of your whereabouts?”

“I don’t know, Josie. I acted for the best, I felt, at the time. Now I don’t know.”

“Put yourself in the place of your friends,” suggested Josie. “How would you like it if Anita Trask were to be in trouble and needing a friend and she did not call on you?”

“Oh, but she has her mother and father and her brother!”

“Certainly, and so had you at one time, but she might lose them and have nobody left but you to help her. Would you not have been willing to share to the last crumb and drop with her?”

“Indeed I would have, or with any member of the family!”

“Exactly! And don’t you see that by trying to save them worry and annoyance you have, in a measure, caused them bitter sorrow and trouble?” Josie’s tone was a little stern.

“I know it—I know it, but not so much59 trouble as they would have had, had Mr. Cheatham been given any cause for complaint against them. He is a terrible man.”

“I believe you exaggerate his power for evil. He may want to be a terrible man, but I can’t see what he could do to the Trasks if you should communicate with them and let them know you are well and, we might add, happy.”

“Indeed we might, Josie, thanks to you and my other wonderful friends here in Dorfield. If you think it best I’ll write to Mrs. Trask this very night. I always saw them on Christmas, and now at least I can write to them so the letter will reach them before that day and reassure them. I know I am obsessed with fear of Mr. Cheatham and what he might be able to accomplish in the way of harming us. I must get over the feeling.”

“You certainly must! Remember there is a perfectly good law in this land of the free and home of the brave, and a fairly good police force to carry out the law. There is nothing Cheatham can do to you, either, for that matter. You tell me he was not appointed your guardian?”

“No, my father appointed Uncle Ben executor of his will and guardian in case my mother should60 marry again, but Mother was influenced by Mr. Cheatham to dispute Uncle Ben’s rights to dictate to us and so Uncle Ben left the matter in her hands. If Uncle Ben would only come back!”

“Well, suppose he does come back—has come back, in fact. How under Heaven would he find his wards, if they go off and run a tea room in a quiet little spot like Dorfield?”

Ursula wrote to her friends at Peewee Valley that same evening, giving them a detailed account of the happenings to herself and small brothers, begging their forgiveness for her long silence and explaining to them the reason for her running off without informing them of her plans. When the letter was in the mail the girl felt happier than she had for a long time, but still doubts would arise as to the wisdom of having written.

Poor Ursula had fallen in the habit of worrying. She was naturally of a timid disposition and the hard life she had endured with her stepfather had increased the tendency to fear imaginary evils as well as the ones of which there was no doubt. She could not say what it was she feared from Mr. Cheatham and the evil Miss Fitchet, but61 with her at all times was a kind of nameless dread. The gay, bright atmosphere at the Higgledy Piggledy Shop did much to dispel this gloom, but at times it enveloped her in spite of her endeavors to break through it. Now that she had at last written the dear old friends the cloud seemed somewhat lifted.

“I hope it is for the best,” she said to Josie, with a note of cheer in her voice.

“Sure it is for the best! Brace up, Ursula! I can’t see what good it is to worry so much about it. Do what you think is right and then trust in the Lord. What harm could come of writing to old friends? No harm in the world. I’m glad you have told them as to your whereabouts.”

In her heart Josie could not help a feeling of impatience over Ursula’s timidity. Josie herself never acknowledged fear of anything, known or unknown. She had a philosophy that carried her through all dangers.

“I wish she would buck up and not give in to this nameless fear about what Cheatham might or might not do,” Josie mused. “Of course, if I had two little brothers like Ben and Phil I might not be so sure of myself,” she continued,62 “but what under Heaven could happen to those kids here in Dorfield?”

It was Christmas Eve and the Higgledy Piggledy Shop was closed for a week. It had been a strenuous time and all of the girls were tired and needed a rest. Orders of all descriptions had poured in and in the midst of the rush Josie had been employed in her capacity of detective to track a lavender suit belonging to a dressy woman, who sent it to a cleaner by her colored maid. Suit and maid had disappeared off the face of the earth. Josie had found both maid and suit. The maid was the same color but the suit, alas! was a vivid scarlet. Cleaners are also dyers.

Josie was glad the rush was over. Even her iron nerves were stretched by the Christmas rush. She was alone in the shop. It was good to be alone even if it did happen to be Christmas Eve. The partners had gone for the week. Mary Louise had come in laden with parcels, her cheeks glowing with the crisp December air and her eyes shining from the joy of giving. She had insisted upon taking Josie home with her for the holidays but to no avail.

“I’ll come and have Christmas dinner with63 you. I have a lot of things to do and loose ends to tie up and I’ll get it over with while the shop is closed. I’m not lonesome, dear, so don’t worry about me. Go on home to your Danny and forget your spinster friends.”

“Oh, Josie, how funny to call yourself a spinster! You won’t be a spinster for years and years.”

“Look in the dictionary and see if I’m not one already. That book says a spinster is one who spins and also an unmarried woman. I certainly am an unmarried woman even though I’m not a very old one as yet. I am also a spinster in that I am spinning a web in my mind in which to catch poor Ursula’s unscrupulous stepfather. I may never need the web but I am on the alert in case I should have to spread it out in the path of the unwary. I’ll see you to-morrow, dear. Good-bye! It was like you to get those presents for Ben and Philip. Ursula was very happy over them. She is planning a lovely to-morrow for them. She is a wonderful girl but I wish she would cheer up.”

Night closed down on Dorfield. It was a white Christmas. Josie could hear the sleigh bells ringing, as merry parties passed the shop. She64 made herself cosy by the open grate which was one of the attractions of the Higgledy Piggledy. She settled herself snugly in a winged chair, an antique they were selling on commission, and drawing her reading light closer with a contented sigh she opened her book—a new detective story.

“Clever, very clever!” she said aloud. Josie had a habit of talking to herself when left alone. “Clever as to story but the author is afraid to draw characters with any clearness for fear of giving away his plot. If the characterization is good then the characters must act according to the way such persons are bound to behave and so the secret is out long before the book has reached its climax. A detective tale leaves one in doubt right to the end, as to who has done the direful deed. That is because the folks in the books are like so many paper dolls, as far as being real people is concerned—painted on one side with no innards.”

The girl read on and on. The shop was quiet, with that abnormal stillness that settles on the business section of a town after business hours. As it was Christmas Eve and business is not over on that day until midnight, this extreme quiet65 meant that the hour had struck and it was really the dawn of Christmas Day. Still Josie read on.

“It’s my one excess and I’m going to indulge in it since Christmas comes but once a year,” she announced to the accusing ship’s clock over the mantel as it chimed out “eight bells.” She mended the fire with a large lump of coal from the hod and settled herself again.

CHAPTER VI
PHILIP IS KIDNAPED

The detective story ended, as all good detective stories do, with the mystery solved, the criminals brought to justice and the most unlikely person in it rounded up as the villain.

“Good enough, but I could write a better one if I had time and paper and knew how to write,” yawned Josie.

Suddenly the telephone bell broke the stillness. It made Josie, the dauntless, jump.

“Stuff and nonsense—this time o’ night! I’ve a great mind not to answer it. I bet it’s somebody playing a joke on me and when I take down the receiver will just say, ‘Christmas gift!’”

The ringing persisted and Josie grumblingly called, “Well? Higgledy Piggledy Shop! Miss O’Gorman at the ’phone!”

“Josie! Josie! This is Ursula! Can you hear me?” The voice was faint from agitation.

“Yes! What’s up?”

67 “Little Philip is gone!”

“Gone where?” Josie asked. She was ashamed of herself the instant she had asked what she considered a very foolish question. If Ursula had known where, she would naturally have gone and found her little brother without delay.

“I don’t know,” continued the frantic sister. “The boys went to bed early and I sat up putting the finishing touches on some little presents I was making. They were fast asleep. I looked in on them for a moment before I ran across the street to take some things to the Conants and Irene. I did not latch the door to the apartment as I did not expect to be gone a minute. That was about nine o’clock. I am sure I was not out of the house five minutes in all. Mr. and Mrs. Conant begged me to come in but I merely left my Christmas parcels and after chatting with them a moment in the hall ran back home. I did not even go in to see Irene, but sent her a message. When I got home I did not go to bed but very foolishly sat up and sewed awhile and then read. I wanted to be sure the boys were fast asleep before I filled their stockings which they had hung up for Santa’s visit. I only went in68 their room a few minutes ago. Ben was fast asleep and Philip was—gone. His clothes are gone, too—overcoat, hat and mittens, but they took him off wrapped in a blanket.”

“Have you looked everywhere?”

“Everywhere!”

“I’ll be right over,” said Josie, hoping she kept from her voice a certain impatience and weariness she could not help but feel. Remembering the scare about little Philip before and the frantic search of some six or eight persons and how easy it had been to find him, she was sure that the little boy was safely tucked away under the bed or behind the bureau or somewhere.

“You can’t lose that kid,” she declared, as she drew on her goloshes preparing for the snow, which was deep and drifting. “If Ursula would only buck up! I was a fool not to get my beauty sleep when I had a chance. I think I’ll get Bob Dulaney in on this. He did me a good turn in the Markle case.”

Bob Dulaney was a young newspaper reporter who was rapidly making a name for himself. It was he who had grappled with Felix Markle and had overcome that doughty if evil knight with69 the terrible scissors-hold known to wrestlers. But that is another tale. At any rate he was a fast friend to the Higgledy Piggledies, ever ready to do their bidding. He was all devotion to Irene, his great strength always at the service of the lame girl.

It took but a moment to get the young man on the wire.

“Hello, Bob! Josie O’Gorman! Want to help me?”

“Sure!”

“There may be a story in it, but more likely not. Anyhow, you will be of great assistance. Ursula Ellett’s kid brother is missing. I am on my way there now. She’s just phoned me. If I don’t find him under the bed or behind the door I will let you know.” Josie always used the telephone as though someone were counting words on her.

“Let me know much! I’ve got my Lizzie racer here and will come pick you up. Snow’s mighty high for runts. Be at your door by the time you get bundled up. So long!” And he’d hung up.

Josie laughed. Bob Dulaney always treated her like a boy, and she enjoyed it. It was rather70 nice not to have to plough through the drifts. She put on a thick ulster and heavy gloves, started to lock the door of the shop but paused a moment in thought.

“I’d better take my grip,” she mused. “I may have to catch a train.”

Josie kept a suitcase packed for an emergency—“As clever crooks and detectives always do,” she had said.

A muffled toot announced Bob and his tiny racer.

“What! Going on a trip?” he asked, as Josie came running down the steps with the suitcase.

“Never can tell. I hope not. I also hope there is no story for your paper at the end of this mad ride, but we must be prepared.”

The racer was slipping through the dry snow with the ease that an airplane might breast a bank of clouds.

“If you weren’t you and I, I,” laughed Josie, “we might be taken for an eloping couple.”

“I’d much prefer being taken for that than to be taken for speeding,” declared Bob, as they swirled around a corner almost knocking the brass buttons off a belated policeman. The poor71 man rubbed his stomach sadly as though he had been actually touched.

“Them youngsters better be glad they didn’t hit me,” he grumbled. “If it wasn’t Christmas Eve I’d follow ’em up.”

They found the house in which Ursula lived all astir. It was an old mansion that had been converted into an apartment house, where the shabby genteel had taken refuge, but kind hearts beat under the worn coats and the lodgers had one and all come to Ursula’s assistance. To be sure some of them told dismal stories about the lost Charlie Ross of the last century, and how his mother and father had hunted him high and low, spending fortunes on the search, but never giving up, following in vain clue after clue that took them in all kinds of places and climes until they were an old white-haired couple bent and broken in spirit.

Others of the fellow lodgers were more practical in demonstrations of sympathy. One old lady put on her spectacles and solemnly began to look over the pieces in her scrap bag. She had always been finding things that were lost in that capacious bag. A nervous, middle-aged bachelor was going around to the different apartments and72 solemnly poking up the chimneys with a hearth broom.

“Persons often hide up flues in motion pictures,” he said.

Poor little Ben, who felt somehow that he was responsible for his brother’s disappearance, since he had slept through his flitting, was profiting by Josie’s success in finding Philip when he was lost before by making a systematic search. With tense mouth and burning eyes he was examining every crack and corner of the old house.

“Th’ain’t any dumb-waiter or elevators here,” he sobbed when Josie made her appearance, “but oh, Miss Josie, I’ve looked between the mattresses an’ behind the bureaus an’ up on top the wardrobes in every ’partment here.”

“I know you have, my dear,” said Josie gently, “but tell me, Ben, who is in the apartment next to yours?”

“Th’ain’t nobody. That’s been vacant three months.”

Josie considered, and asked:

“Have you looked in there?”

“No’m! The door is locked.”

Josie slipped from her pocket a skeleton key which she fitted neatly in the lock of the door, and73 with a sure turn of her strong little wrist she turned the bolt.

“Humph! It looks as though we were none of us safe in our beds,” remarked a sharp-nosed dressmaker, who had the apartment directly across the hall from Ursula’s. “If it’s that easy to open a door.”

“Inside bolts are safer,” said Josie, “but even those are not proof against crooks and their tools.”

The room was dark and dusty. Josie produced a flash light but discovered the electric light had not been turned off since the departure of the former tenant and by touching the proper button she quickly had a flood of light with which to continue her investigations. With no ceremony she closed the door on the curious crowd of lodgers, admitting only Bob Dulaney.

“Stand still, please,” she commanded. “We must examine the tracks in this room. It is covered with the dust of ages but someone has been in it recently. Look! It’s a woman with short rather broad feet and high heels, run down—a tendency to fallen arches I should say because of the heels being worn on the inside. Whoever has been in here has been at this window. See! It74 is possible to look into Ursula’s living room from this window. Look! She has even scraped the frost from the pane to get a better view. This pane is not so covered with grime as the others. Umhum! She is a little taller than I am, but not much. Rather a chunky party I should say.”

“Wears gilt hairpins, too,” laughed Bob, stooping and picking up what was even more a give away as to sex than the uncertain tracks of high heels.

“Oh, you jewel!” cried Josie. “Meaning you and not the hairpin, Bob. I’m certainly glad you are in on this. I didn’t see the hairpin and it will mean a lot more to me than anything.”

“Let me present it to you,” said Bob, bowing low with mock courtesy. “Josie, you delight my soul. I feel like Dr. Watson in attendance on Sherlock Holmes. But joking aside, I believe if poor little Philip has really been kidnaped it was by some person or persons who had been hiding in this room.”

“Sure! But it was only one person because there are no signs of other footprints. Thank goodness the floor was stained with a dark varnish. It makes the footprints so much easier to define. Well, Bob, there is no use in hanging75 around here. I reckon we’d best get out and hustle.”

Josie regretted that she had not telephoned police headquarters immediately after hearing from Ursula that Philip was missing, but remembering the last time, she had felt the chief might think that like the boy in the fable she had called “wolf” too often. Now he must be informed of the trouble and get his men busy on the case. The kidnapper had several hours start and no time was to be lost or, as Josie expressed it, “the scent might get cold.”

Ursula was in a state of mind bordering on frenzy. She walked up and down the room wringing her hands and moaning piteously.

“If only I had not gone over to the Conants’,” she wailed. “Or if I only had locked the door. I’ve always been afraid to lock the boys up in a room for fear of fire and they couldn’t get out. My baby Philip! My baby Philip!”

Josie stood by her side and endeavored to calm her.

“See here, Ursula, you must listen to me a moment and you must tell me some things I want to know. You must be very frank and conceal nothing.”

76 “I never have, Josie—nothing of the least importance, that is.”

“All right! Now tell me why anybody would want Philip—except of course that he is a lovely child. But people don’t steal boys just because they are charming.”

“Don’t they? Well, Josie, I don’t know what they would get but charm. You know how poor I am.”

“Well, I can’t help feeling there is something besides charm in this transaction. Now, Ursula, give me the names and addresses of any friends or connections you have in Louisville. I want Mr. Cheatham’s full name and his address and also what hospital had the honor of graduating Miss Fitchet as a nurse. Write all your information in this little book. Now, my dear girl, you must spunk up all you can. I know it is hard, but Philip is going to be found, and that within a few days or maybe hours. You must promise me something: it makes no difference what communication you receive from these persons who have seen fit to carry off our Philip, you will call up Captain Lonsdale and tell him all about it. It will be a plain case of blackmail. If they tell you to meet them in a quiet spot with all of your77 diamonds in a black bag, don’t you do it. You let the chief of police do your meeting.”

“But Josie, where will you be that you give me all these directions?”

“Me? I’m going to take the next train for Louisville. I feel it in my bones that I can learn something to my advantage there. I’ll learn the motives and work from that.”

“Oh, let me go too!” begged Ursula. Josie considered a moment. Then she said:

“I really think it would be wiser for you to stay right where you are. You see Irene and her aunt and uncle will be good to you and little Ben and Mary Louise will be here, and Elizabeth Wright. Philip may be brought back any minute, and you certainly don’t want to be away from home when they bring him back.”

“No, I just had a feeling maybe he might be in Louisville and I could get him sooner if I went there,” sighed the poor girl, who was trying desperately to keep back the tears that would course down her pale cheeks.

Josie carried away a sad picture of her friend. She left the Dorfield end in the hands of Bob Dulaney, who was to inform the police of the kidnapping and also keep busy on his own78 account, following up every clue that might present itself.

“Good-bye, Bob!” called Josie as she jumped aboard the train. “Keep me informed of the case and I’ll do the same with you.”

CHAPTER VII
JOSIE VISITS LOUISVILLE

Christmas morning in Louisville! Josie was still regretting the hours spent in reading the detective story that should have been dedicated to sleep, but she was happily constituted and could do with very little sleep if the case she was on necessitated it. At other times she put in eight hours at night—never more and never less.

“Humph! This place might be London, it is so foggy,” she mused as the train crawled along the river bank. On one side the Ohio river, muddy and trying to freeze, on the other side the slums of the city, smoky and full of deep puddles that had succeeded in freezing.

Josie had been planning a campaign through the hours spent in her berth. First she must find out things. What type of man she had to deal with in Cheatham? What reason might he have for abducting Philip? Where was Miss Fitchet at the present, and what was her reputation in Louisville?

80 Experience had taught Josie that the way to find out things about persons was to seek a boarding house, not too fine, but where those who wanted to keep up appearances on limited incomes had their abode. By diligent inquiry she had learned of such a place from the colored Pullman porter.

“Yassum, I’s bawn an’ bred in Lou’ville,” he had said as he whisked every imaginary speck of dust from Josie’s coat. “Th’ain’t nothin’ I don’ know ’bout dat town. I kin ’member when mule cyars uster fotch th’ folks up ’n down Fo’th Street befo’ trolleys wuz ever hearn tell about.”

“Maybe you can tell me of a good boarding house then,” Josie had ventured, “one not too expensive but respectable.”

“Sho I kin! Miss Lucy Leech air got a nice place for a lone young lady ter go. Miss Lucy ain’t above puttin’ on some style but th’ swell part er town am kinder moved off an’ lef’ Miss Lucy high an’ dry. But plenty er good folks am still a-boa’din’ with Miss Lucy Leech. Mah wife she’s de cook ter Miss Lucy an’ she been thar so long I reckon she’ll stay thar till she er Miss Lucy goes ter jine the heavenly throng. Th’ain’t no need fer mah Mandy ter wuck out no mo’ but81 she ’lows I’m off on the road mo’n most er the time an’ she mought as well be wuckin’ as gaddin’ about.”

Josie was sure Miss Lucy Leech’s was exactly the place she wanted for a temporary home. The porter gave her the address and when the train drew into the station he put her in care of a negro driver, who proudly bore her off to his ancient hack oblivious to the jeers of the taxi drivers who were lined up waiting for passengers.

Christmas morning is not a very popular one for arriving in a city and Josie might have had the pick of automobiles meeting the early train, but the hack driver had got her first and she was determined to stay with him and see the adventure through. Besides, she liked the looks of the man.

The streets were flowing with slush, a mixture of mud and snow that had melted the day before and was freezing again on that Christmas morning. The ancient hackman cracked his whip over the backs of his bony team and the shabby vehicle that was bearing Josie to Miss Lucy Leech’s select boarding house creaked and groaned as though the young girl’s weight was82 too much for it. Josie bounced helplessly up and down on the back seat.

“Well, I should be thankful it isn’t an ox cart,” she thought. “Time was when a hack was considered the height of luxury. At any rate I can get some idea of the city, which is next to impossible when one is whizzed in an automobile. This sea-going hack is a singularly appropriate vessel in which to sail this turgid stream that no doubt the Louisvillians call a street. Somehow I feel as though we ought to blow a fog horn.”

The winter sun was up and trying to shine, but looked like a huge orange, as seen through the veil of fog and smoke. Tall buildings made the narrow streets of the down-town district seem like canyons. The city seemed deserted, except for an occasional taxi and the inevitable early bird of a newsboy crying his papers. Nothing is more forlorn than a usually busy section of a city on a foggy Christmas morning. Josie was relieved when her craft tacked down a side street that showed signs of life, although the life of the shabby genteel.

There was no doubt about the neighborhood having at one time been fashionable. The houses83 were built on a lavish scale, with high ceilings and broad, hospitable steps and yards, front, back and side. On that street boarding houses were the rule and private homes the exception. Trade had begun to encroach on the one time residential block and yards were disappearing in some places and small shops being erected fronting on the street and backing on the handsome old houses.

Miss Lucy Leech’s remained intact, however. One fancied her house could no more put up a different front than Miss Lucy herself would. The house, a huge mansion with columned portico, was guarded by two peacefully inclined iron lions. Miss Lucy wore water waves, iron grey. She had always worn them through changing fashions of bangs, pompadours, and the marcel. The house had been originally painted grey, the lions black. Once in a decade Miss Lucy managed a new coat of paint. She would not have thought of changing the color of her house and the faithful lions any more than of giving her own respectable water waves a henna dip.

Miss Lucy’s back was straight and stiff; so was her upper lip. Her back was stiff because84 of the dignity of the Leeches, which she felt compelled to uphold. Her lip was stiff from necessity. Running a boarding house for almost half a century gives one “a stiff upper lip.” Running a boarding house had become second nature to Miss Lucy. It was as much a part of her as the iron grey waves in her hair. To be sure if it had not been for Mandy, the faithful cook, it would not have been such an easy matter to keep going. Mandy was cook and housekeeper as well. She it was who planned the meals and kept Miss Lucy from serving unbalanced rations to her select boarders.

“Lawsamussy, Miss Lucy, don’t go a-habin’ cabbage an’ cauliflowers de self-same meal. Deys one an’ de same ’cept cauliflowers am mo’ ’ristocratic an’ eddicated like. An’ fergetti, even when it’s got cheese on it, is kinder taterish in de way it sticks ter yo’ ribs, so when you ’lows you air gonter order fergetti I wouldn’t be havin’ scalloped taters.”

Aunt Mandy had never heard of calories and vitamins but she had a genius for food and Miss Lucy’s boarders appreciated the old cook’s prowess in the art and stayed on in the dilapidated old house, putting up with the old-fashioned85 plumbing and the one bath room with its rusty tin tub and many other inconveniences for the sake of Mandy’s culinary achievements.

“Sometimes I air fo’ced ter ’form miracles on de victuals,” Aunt Mandy had said once. “Miss Lucy air oftentimes fergitful in her orderation. I knows she gits in de market an’ gits ter talkin’ ’bout befo’ de wah an’ sech an’ boa’ders goes out’n her haid an’ mealtime comes ’round an’ I gotter stir up soup mostly out’n water but, lawsamussy, if’n you season up water right it’s tasty. Gumption air de maindes’ thing in cookin’. Gumption air mo’ ’liable dan ’gredients.”

To this house came Josie on Christmas morning. Aunt Mandy was sweeping the bottom step as the old hack lumbered up the street and came to a halt in the slush-filled gutter. The old woman beat her broom on the back of one of the peaceful black lions and called out to the grinning hackman:

“Hi yer, Brer Si?”

“Hi yer se’f, Sis Mandy? Brer Peter done sent you an’ Miss Lucy a Chris’mus gif’—a new boa’der. I hope you air got room.”

“Sho we air got room—an’ if’n we ain’t we86 kin make room,” responded the old woman.

Aunt Mandy was dressed in a purple calico dress, with a voluminous skirt that suggested the days of hoops. Her head was wrapped in a red bandanna handkerchief. Her kind old face was wreathed in smiles as she bobbed a curtsey to Josie, who scrambled from the depths of the hack.

“Come right in, miss! Fust breakfas’ air under way an’ I’ll hump it up some. I knows how hongryfyin’ sleepin’ cyars is. Whe’fo’ you didn’t brung Peter up from the depot alongst with yo’ fare, Brer Si?”

“He gotter bresh up some fust, but he’ll be long in three shakes.”

“Well, me’n Miss Lucy air ’bleeged ter you fer a boa’der an’ I wouldn’t be ’stonished if a leetle later on Miss Lucy would be a passin’ out some Chris’mus. You mought kinder stop in on us if you air a comin’ this a-way.”

“I’ll be! I’ll be!” bowed the hackman. Even the bony horses seemed cheered up at the prospect of Miss Lucy’s passing out “some Christmas,” and they pranced up the street with quite an air of gaiety.

CHAPTER VIII
CLUES FROM AUNT MANDY

Aunt Mandy ushered Josie into a cheerful, shabby parlor. The furniture was a mixture of fine old mahogany, cheap varnished oak, and odds and ends of wicker and mission. There were some beautiful dignified portraits, hanging cheek by jowl with simpering chromos of girls kissing roses and stern faced persons, represented by crayon drawings of enlarged photographs in plush frames. There was a soft coal fire in the broad, deep grate and the flames leapt merrily up the sooty flue. Josie was chilled to the bone and was grateful for the warmth and cheer of the room.

“I low as how you’d like a cup er cawfee this very minute,” suggested Aunt Mandy. “Breakfas’ ain’t quite ready but de cawfee air givin’ out a odium dat means it air jes’ about done. Suppos’n’ you come on back to de kitchen an’ let Mandy fix you up a tray, if you ain’t too proud ter eat in de kitchen?”

88 “I’m proud to be allowed to eat in the kitchen,” smiled Josie. “I don’t often get in a real kitchen. I have nothing but a kitchenette.”

“Humph! I don’ know what dat am but it sounds ter me like it’s a kitchen whar folks done et ’stid of a dinin’ room.”

Josie laughed merrily and explained, to Mandy’s delight, that it was a little kitchen not much bigger than a china closet.

“An’ what air you a-doin’ here in Lou’ville on Chris’mus mornin,’ chil’? Ain’t you got no folks?”

“No real folks—that is none that belong to me,” said Josie sadly. She remembered the old days with her father and could not keep back a tiny tear that rolled from the corner of her eye before she could stop it.

“Now, now, honey! You kin jes’ be to home here wiv Miss Lucy an’ me. Lots er folks have spent Chris’mus wiv us an’ ’tain’t sech a bad place ter be on dat day, I kin tell yer. Now you drink yo’ cawfee. Bless Bob, if de sun hain’t done bust through the fawg! It’s gonter be a bright day arfter all.”

The old woman beamed on her guest, who was seated in the big kitchen sipping coffee from a89 huge blue willow-ware cup, minus a handle. The coffee was delicious and there was a pleasing aroma stealing from the oven that told of hot rolls almost done.

“An’ whatcher say you air doin’ here in Lou’ville?” asked Aunt Mandy.

Josie hadn’t said, but she had her answer ready and it was a good answer—one she meant to make come true.

“I help run a little shop in my town and I’m hunting up some things for that shop,” she explained. What she told of the nature of the shop delighted and interested Mandy. So Josie went on to explain:

“I want to find someone who plaits rag rugs and also someone who makes hand-made brooms, that round kind with split oak handles.”

“Well, bless Bob, if you ain’t done struck de right pusson to d’rick you!” exclaimed Aunt Mandy. “I got a kinder cousin what lives out back er Peewee Valley an’ she air de greates’ han’ fer cyarpet plaitin’ an’ quilt piecin’ I ever seed, an’ her ol’ man kin make the nices’ brooms an’ split oak cheers in dis hyar lan’ o’ Kaintuck. Dey do say dat he learnt his trade at the pen’tent’ary, but dat don’ matter nuthin a tall.90 De thing is he air got a trade, what is mo’n mos’. Sis Minerva an’ Brer Abe is dey names.”

“Peewee Valley, you say?” Josie remembered that was where Ursula’s friends, the Trasks, lived.

“Yessum! Jes’ up back er Peewee! You kin take ’lectric cyar right down here at de interbourbon station. Dey am moughty bold a-namin’ a station arfter Bourbon whiskey when it air ’gainst de law ter sell it no mo’, but I reckon so many bottles air been a carried back an’ fo’th on dat road from Lou’ville ter Peewee Valley dat de name done stuck fer good.”

Josie laughed delightedly and asked for further information concerning the cousin who was such a wonder at quilts and rag rugs.

“Well, you git off’n de cyar right at Colonel Trask’s. De driver’ll tell you what dat is. Everybody knows Colonel Trask an’ his wife, Miss Anita Bowles as was.”

Then followed minute directions as to lanes and stiles and short cuts through gaps in fences, which Josie must take to find the cousin. Josie felt the detective business was too easy if information was handed out in this manner without any questions on her part. Peewee Valley—the91 Trasks! The very things she wanted to know and now she knew how to find them without so much as asking a question!

“Did you ever know some people here named Ellett?” Josie asked. “A Mr. Philip Ellett. I believe he died and his widow married again. I know some people who used to know them.”

“Sho I knowed ’em. Po’ li’l’ fool! She’s daid too, now.”

“Oh, is she?”

“Yessum—daid, an’ dat man Cheatham livin’ in de Ellett house, which ain’t fur from here; in fac’, we backs on de same alley. I done hear tell he driv his stepchillun off’n de premus. Some say he owns de house, havin’ paid cash money down fer it an’ he couldn’t live wiv his steps ’cause de boy done tried ter kill him an’ de gal was a holpin’ of him. But I knows dat old Cheatham too well to believe no sich tale. If dey was any killin’ goin’ on he was de killer an’ not de killdee. Anyhow de chilluns am gone off somewhars an’ he am a holdin’ high carnal whur his wife’s fust husban’s folks done liv’ long befo’ de wah an’ long befo’ dat.”

“He must be a horrid man.”

“Horrid ain’t de word, but he done got some92 folks in Lou’ville fooled case he air right smooth talkin’ an’ he could keep a piece er col’ butter in his mouth all day ’thout its meltin’. He wa’ a boa’din hyar wiv Miss Lucy when he married de widow Ellett an’ I hears lots er talk back an’ fo’th concernin’ him an’ de bride. The boa’ders was divided ’bout him: some holdin’ he wa’ a very pleasant gemman, an’ dey wa’ mostly de maiden ladies, an’ others dat he wa’ a scamp an’ slick as dey make ’em. He wa’ too shifty-eyed fer me an’ too free with his orders an’ too constrained-like with his cash money.”

“Is he stingy?” laughed Josie.

“Stingy? Is he? Why dat dere man will squeeze a nickel so tight de heads an’ tails git mixed up. He don’t min’ spendin’ money fo’ show. I knowed a ooman what cooked fo’ dem when his wife was a-dyin’ on her death baid an’ she said de po’ thing had all kinds er fine silks an’ satins an’ furs what he done buyed her but she didn’t have underclo’s ’nough ter flag a han’ cyar. I reckon he mus’ a-been a so’ trial to dem steps cause dey paw an’ all de Elletts air jes’ tother way.”

“Didn’t the children have any relations?”

“Kin, you mean? Yes deir maw had a brother,93 Ben Benson, but he wa’ right put out ’bout his sister marryin’ agin an’ marryin’ sich a man an’ he lit out an’ nobody ain’t seed hide or har er him sence. Some says he’s daid an’ some says he’s diggin’ gol’ an’ maybe di’ments but nobody don’t rightly know whar dat Ben air took hisse’f.”

“Has this Mr. Cheatham married again or does he live all alone in the big Ellett house?”

“No’m, he ain’t married but dey do say he air took up with a nuss named Fitchet. He’ll git his ’serts if’n he gits her cause I done seed enough er that ooman to speak the truf ’bout her. One time she nussed one of us-alls boa’ders an’ whilst dey do say she’s a good nuss an’ takes good keer er de sick she sho am some rest breaker fo’ de niggers. She had me waitin’ on her han’ an’ foot an’ fo’ de fust time sence me’n Miss Lucy’s been running dis house I come moughty nigh pickin’ up an’ leavin’ her. ’Twas Mandy dis an’ Mandy dat ’til I wished the debil had her.”

This was exactly the character Ursula had given Fitchet and Josie was glad to have Mandy verify it. The old woman then rambled on at Josie’s instigation to tell her other Louisville94 gossip until the information she had given concerning the business in hand was completely swamped in her mind by other more stirring happenings and when Miss Lucy Leech finally made her appearance to begin the business of looking out for her boarders the cook had forgotten all about the Elletts and was under the impression the new boarder was especially interested in the direful happenings of a one time famous wedding, when half the county had been mysteriously poisoned.

Miss Lucy sailed into the kitchen with the air of entering the queen’s drawing-room. She seemed not at all surprised to find a new boarder sharing the warmth of the kitchen with the old cook. Miss Lucy was used to Mandy and her ways and accepted both. She met Josie with an air of condescension that put that young person in the category of being a kind of pensioner instead of a boarder.

“Certainly we can take you for a while at least,” she said when Mandy explained who Josie was and what she wanted. Josie was amused to see that Mandy’s information concerning her business and antecedents had grown considerably and she made such a convincing95 tale of her affairs that she began to feel quite important.

“Peter done sen’ her,” Aunt Mandy continued. “Peter he done know all about her an’ when Peter speaks up fo’ white folks you know dey is white folks fo’ fair. Yassum, Peter sent her an’ Si brung her.”

“Be sure and ask Peter and Si in for some eggnogg and a piece of black cake,” Miss Lucy commanded.

“Thank you, ma’m! Thank you ma’m!” exclaimed Aunt Mandy, not divulging that the invitation had already been extended. Mandy knew very well how to manage her mistress, and that was never to let her know whose was the hand that directed the destinies of the boarding house.

“I’ll take dis hyar young lady up to her room, if you think bes’, Miss Lucy, an’ den I’ll hump myse’f an’ dish up dis fust breakfas’.”

CHAPTER IX
JOSIE FINDS A FRIEND

The hall bedroom that Mandy had decided was the suitable place for Josie proved to be clean and comfortable. To be sure it was a third floor back, but Josie liked to be high up and she also liked the outlook on the back yards of the neighbors.

“Yonder’s de ol’ Ellett place,” pointed Aunt Mandy. “It’s some run down, but it wa’ sho a el’gant home in de ole days. I reckon dat ol’ skinflint Cheatham will en’ by buildin’ ’partments dar. Some say he cyarn’t git a clar title or he’d a been tearin’ down an’ puttin’ up befo’ now. Yonder’s him dis blessed minute! Done step out ter view his prop’ty.”

Josie craned her neck to see the rear of poor Ursula’s home, and if possible to get a good look at the villain, Cheatham. At any rate he was in Louisville and not flying across the continent with poor little Philip.

“First, I must see the police here,” she decided ruefully. Seeing the police—any police97 but her old friend Captain Charlie Lonsdale—was a sore trial to Josie. Like most private detectives she was inclined to look down somewhat on the regular force, but she was more interested in having the wrongdoer tracked than in gaining honor and glory by being the one to bring him in.

“The important thing is to find little Philip and unless Captain Charlie has already wired the Louisville police it is up to me to see them.”

One reason for Miss Lucy Leech’s success in running a boarding house was that she attended strictly to her own business and let the guests of her home attend to theirs. She had not gotten rich on this policy, as it is said one may do, but she was at least able to keep her house well filled and to save a comfortable sum for her old age, which was in truth upon her, although she did not realize it. Now that the new and somewhat mysterious young boarder, so highly recommended by the hackman and the porter, decided to brave the slush and the fog and go for a walk on Christmas morning, Miss Lucy asked no questions and in consequence was told no lies. Josie thanked her in her heart and went bravely forth.

98 Two things were happening to the weather. The sun was clearing away the fog and no longer looked so like an orange, and the thermometer was dropping rapidly. Josie was glad of both changes. It was good to find Louisville not the dismal place she had thought it on arriving, but a very pleasing city. A fog is beautiful to an artist but the lay brother prefers a clear day. As for the drop in temperature, it meant less slush and easier walking and a bracing atmosphere that made Josie sniff the air like a colt that has been pent up long in a stable.

The young detective missed the homely friendliness of the Dorfield chief, but had a feeling that the police force of Louisville was really very adequate. The captain in charge was an alert, business-like person, who took hold of the facts, as Josie expressed it to herself, “like a woman.”

“Now what are your plans?” he asked. Josie liked him because he didn’t call her “miss.” Captain Charlie would have said: “What are your plans, miss?” Josie liked being a girl but she hated being “missed” when she was at work.

“I reckon I’m going to hunt the motive first.99 I can’t see why anyone would want to steal a little orphan boy, when the homes and asylums are full of darling children waiting to be adopted. Philip is a lovely child, but not the loveliest I have ever seen. Of course, I suspect this Mr. Cheatham, but he is in Louisville this minute. I am going to ascertain if he has been on a trip recently and look into his financial standing. I am also going to Peewee Valley to see some old friends of Miss Ellett. Miss Ellett is a peculiarly reticent person and it is very difficult to get information from her as to her early life. She does not intend to conceal anything, but the only way to get any information out of her is to worm it out. She had very few friends owing to her mother’s long illness and the peculiarities of her stepfather. Colonel Trask’s family at Peewee Valley were her only intimates.”

“She chose well while she was choosing,” said the police captain. “Well, Miss O’Gorman, you seem to leave very little to the local police force to do. Your name, combined with your methods, make me think you must be some kin to the famous O’Gorman whose place can never be filled. Am I right?”

100 “My father,” said Josie softly.

“Well! Well! Well!” he cried, jumping up from his desk and shaking the girl by both hands. “I’ve worked with O’Gorman on many a case. My, he was a wonder! I think you look like him.”

Josie blushed with delight. Most girls would not like to be told they resembled a funny looking little man with a blobby nose, but Josie was as pleased as though the police captain had told her she must be related to Mary Pickford. Anything at all connected with her beloved father was almost sacred to the girl. When someone told her she looked like him, or resembled him in traits, she had a better opinion of herself all day.

“Well, O’Gorman’s daughter will know how to coöperate,” said the captain, “and that is more than can be said of most detectives. They are always so anxious to get the credit that they will let the criminal escape rather than see someone else capture him. O’Gorman was in the business for the joy he got out of righting wrongs. He never waited to be thanked and sometimes not even to be paid. I’ll be bound he died a poor man.”

101 “Not a rich one,” said Josie, “but if I live to be old there’ll be enough to keep me out of the poorhouse and if I die young, enough to bury me decently and start someone else in life.”

“Spoken like your father!” laughed the captain. “He never told an inquisitive person to mind his own business in so many words but he usually let him know where to ‘get off’.”

“I didn’t mean—” faltered Josie.

“I know you didn’t mean, but you just did, and I respect you all the more for it.”

“Well, Father always did say that if you could not be trusted with your own affairs you could not be trusted with other folks’. I have a habit of taking it for granted that my business is of no interest to others. I did not intend to be snippy.”

“Exactly!” The man laughed silently. He could but mark that Josie still kept to herself what money her father may or may not have left to his only heir.

“If you think best, I’ll go immediately to Peewee Valley and see the Trasks. Miss Ellett tells me they are her best friends and I feel perhaps they may know something of the movements of Cheatham. Before I go, however, I’ll102 make a call on the nurses’ registrar and look into the supposed whereabouts of this nurse Fitchet.”

“I don’t see what you are leaving to me to do then,” said the captain, smiling.

“Well, I guess you have other cases on your docket just now, while this is my sole interest. Good-bye, sir, and thank you for your courtesy!” Josie was up and gone before the surprised man could say anything more.

“Her father all over!” he grinned. “‘Waste not, want not!’ meant words as well as food to Detective O’Gorman.”

CHAPTER X
A VISIT TO PEEWEE VALLEY

“Thank the Lord for gossipy women!” Josie exclaimed as she left the office of the nurses’ registrar, where she had readily engaged the young woman at the desk in a spirited discussion concerning the various nurses whose names were there registered.

It was a simple matter to find out that Miss Fitchet was considered an excellent nurse; also that she was thoroughly unpopular with her sister nurses. She was in demand, however, because of her steady nerves.

“Nothing knocks her out,” declared the registry clerk. “She wouldn’t mind holding a man’s legs while the doctor cut off his arm. Blood’s nothing more than water to her. Doctors like her because she attends strictly to business, but the patients get fed up on her. They say she isn’t human.”

All this was poured forth in a gushing stream, when Josie asked quite mildly if the girl happened104 to know a nurse by the name of Fitchet, explaining she did not know her personally but that she had some friends who knew her and they had suggested her as a person who might care for Josie’s great uncle (a purely fictitious person). The great uncle had not arrived in Louisville, but was expected shortly, and would perhaps need a nurse. Josie was not sure of this. She just thought she would step around and ask about Fitchet.

“She’s got a job just now in Florida—at least she did have one—but we’ve word from the party employing her that she has left them without giving notice and now they’re trying to have us send them another. It is no trouble for Fitchet to get a job, so I don’t mind telling you that if you love your great uncle, I wouldn’t fool with Fitchet. She’s liable to make him will her all his money and then starve him to death. I’ve heard plenty of patients say that she eats up the goodies sent to them right before their eyes, declaring they are too rich for sick folks. I don’t like her, and I don’t care who knows it. I don’t generally talk out this way to customers but I take such an interest in your poor, dear great uncle. She’d land the poor dear man in105 the grave in a month and then you’d find a will in her favor. She’s a slick one, with her head cocked on one side and a grin like a panther.”

“Did she come back to Louisville when she left the people in Florida?” asked Josie, laughing.

“Not yet! I reckon she’s frying fish somewheres else. But, young lady, if you are hunting a nurse you let me recommend a lovely girl I know. She’s as sweet as a peach and so accommodating she’ll cook and clean up if need be and wash out the baby’s little sacques and socks—and press his cap, strings and all.”

“But my great uncle doesn’t wear sacques and caps and I fancy he can get someone else to wash his socks,” teased Josie.

“Oh, yes, I forgot. I was thinkin’ ’twas a baby. Anyhow, don’t get Fitchet.”

“All right, I won’t,” agreed Josie.

“Won’t you leave your name and address?” suggested the girl. “My boss always wants folks to leave their names and addresses.”

“There’s hardly any use,” said Josie. “I’m not sure my great uncle is coming, and if he does it is but a step to come to your office and see you. I think a personal interview is so satisfactory.106 Don’t you? Besides, I shall enjoy seeing you again.”

The girl at the desk was flattered by Josie’s remarks and let her make her escape without further insistence concerning names and addresses.

“Well, I know where Fitchet isn’t, at least,” muttered Josie. “And now for Peewee Valley!”

The interurban car was on time and so was Josie. She could not help smiling when she remembered Aunt Mandy’s description of this car and her calling it the interbourbon. There were two men aboard who might very well keep up the alleged reputation of the line, as their hip pockets bulged suspiciously, and their gait suggested that they might have been imbibing quite freely.

The car filled rapidly with holiday makers and parties going to spend Christmas day in the country with relations and friends.

“I might feel sorry for myself if I wanted to,” thought Josie, “but somehow I don’t. Here I am having no Christmas to speak of, but feeling as chipper as you please, with a wonderfully interesting day ahead of me. Poor107 Ursula is the one who may well feel sorry for herself, but I am as sure as anything I’ll find Philip, and that before so very long. But the motive for stealing him—what can it be? Ursula is as poor as a church mouse. If it only wasn’t Christmas I’d sleuth around and find out something about Cheatham’s business and his financial standing.”

So Josie mused as those on Christmas pleasure bent squeezed her into a corner of the car. She was thankful to have a seat next the window, although at first the prospect of dirty snow and empty streets was not so very pleasing.

The trolley soon whizzed through the city into the suburbs and then into open country, past pleasant homes where prosperity was the keynote. Now the snow was clean and, wherever it had drifted aside, instead of a bare brown patch, green grass met the eye, as is the way in Kentucky. Blue grass will remain green through the winter under the snow.

Peewee Valley was remarkable for its wonderful beech trees, and the fact that it was not a valley at all. In truth the trolley seemed to be going up grade. The sun, which had seemed nothing but a round orange through the smoke108 and fog of Louisville, was now shining brilliantly, but the mercury was steadily falling in spite of old Sol and the air was crisp and bracing. Josie remembered Mandy’s directions and stopped the car at the post office.

“That must be Colonel Trask’s,” she decided, standing for a moment in the snow as the trolley whizzed out of sight, and gazing across the road at a pleasant looking home well back from the road, approached by an avenue bordered by maple trees. They were bare and gaunt on that winter’s morning, but it was not difficult to picture them in full leaf shading the road. Indeed, here and there was a bench which, though covered with snow, made one think instinctively of summer days.

The snow had been beaten down to a hard path on one side of the road and the road itself gave evidence of much travel—prints of horses’ hoofs and of automobile tires. The house, which could be seen from the approach, was white with grey gabled roof, the sky line much broken with dormer windows and great red chimneys. Josie counted five, with smoke curling from every one of them.

A sudden sound of sleigh bells and trotting109 horses! Josie was in a brown study, trying to untangle the web woven around Ursula Ellett. She found it difficult to fix her thoughts, since the general appearance of the hospitable home she was approaching made her think, in spite of herself, of roast turkey and goose, plum pudding and mince pies, bulging Christmas stockings and fir trees blazing with candles. The sound of sleigh bells made her jump. She felt almost that Santa Claus himself was coming. So swiftly were the horses drawing the red cutter over the beaten snow they had passed her almost before she could collect her scattered senses.

“Whoa!” commanded the driver, stopping his team a few feet beyond the spot where Josie stood rooted in the snow. “Have a ride?”

The driver was a young man of engaging manner and wonderfully even teeth. That was the first impression made on Josie. Afterwards she realized that he was an exceedingly handsome young Kentuckian, blue-eyed, straight-nosed, clean cut and athletic.

“Certainly!” She answered his invitation without hesitation. Female detectives cannot afford to be squeamish, but it was not a detective who sprang so readily into the red cutter—rather110 a young girl away from home on Christmas morning, in whose ears the music of the sleigh bells played an alluring tune and who was, in spite of the serious business that had brought her to Louisville, longing for companionship.

“Where are you going?” asked the young man. “I can take you wherever it is, because my horses are eating their heads off in the stable and are as wild to be up and out and racing as I am. I came on you so suddenly I couldn’t tell which way you were headed.”

“This way,” pointed Josie. “I am hunting some colored people. The woman makes rag rugs and the man brooms. I was directed through Colonel Trask’s place. I am on the right road, am I not?”

“You are indeed. Colonel Trask is my father. But why hunt rag rug and broom makers on Christmas morning?”

“Because—but—oh, please tell me, are you Teddy?”

“The same—and you?”

Josie looked into the kind, clear, boyish, blue eyes and determined to trust their owner with her story.

111 “I am Ursula Ellett’s friend and I’m not really very much interested in rag rugs and brooms.”

The eyes hardened from blue to ice.

“Ah, indeed!” he said with cold politeness.

“I want to see your mother and father. Ursula—”

“Miss Ellett is well, I hope.”

“As well as could be expected, considering she is among strangers, making a living for herself and her two little brothers and now the younger brother, little Philip, has been stolen from her. Yes, very well, thank you. I see I was mistaken in thinking Mr. Theodore Trask was her friend, and since I have evidently touched on an uninteresting subject, I shall ask you to stop your horses and let me get out.”

Josie was angry—so angry she felt it almost impossible to refrain from slapping the handsome face of her driver. His “Miss Ellett is well, I hope,” was what had aroused her anger. The tone with which he had made the seemingly harmless remark had enraged Josie, and the usually calm little detective was in a boiling passion.

The icy eyes melted a little, but the young man made no movement towards stopping the horses.112 Instead, he turned them sharply around in the avenue and headed them for the open road. With a word of encouragement the beautiful creatures were urged to greater speed. Josie was compelled to grasp her companion’s arm to steady herself. A seat in an open cutter is a precarious one when a reckless driver and his horses are feeling too full of pep.

Josie took a long breath. She couldn’t help enjoying the sensation of being forcibly carried off by an ice king, even though she did hate his superciliousness.

CHAPTER XI
MR. CHEATHAM IS UNMASKED

“Cooled down a little by now?” asked Teddy Trask, after about a mile of record-breaking trotting. “Now, Miss Friend—that’s the only name I know you by—you listen to me a minute. I was Ursula Ellett’s friend. In fact, I hoped I was going to be closer than a mere friend. My family loved her from my father on down. We felt she must know we were to be trusted and we trusted her. Imagine our feelings when she simply departed from Louisville without saying one word to any of us, without writing a line, even to my mother. Mr. Cheatham has been out to see us and told us how her behavior has hurt him. He said she had requested him not to inform us of her whereabouts and he was forced to respect her wishes in the matter. He merely sends her a monthly remittance of five hundred dollars, which surely should be enough for her to live on very comfortably, without having to work so hard to support her little brothers.”

114 “Lies! Lies! All a pack of lies!” Josie flashed.

“We might have thought that, if Ursula had done anything to contradict what Cheatham has said, but her silence is enough to convince us that we were not as dear to her as we had felt. He tells us she is soon to be married to a multi-millionaire and also that she writes she cannot pretend to any affection for him but that he is so rich she feels it would be foolish to let such a chance slip.”

“Ursula to be married! Ursula with a monthly remittance of five hundred dollars! Really, Mr. Trask, I can’t believe you are serious. She has been as poor as poor can be but now she is conducting a tea room in a little shop called the Higgledy Piggledy Shop, of which I am part owner, and the boys come and help after school and eat up all the cold waffles for accommodation. All of the Higgledy Piggledies love Ursula and her boys and last night someone came and kidnaped little Philip and Ursula is wild with grief and I have come to Louisville to see if I can get a clue to a motive for stealing the child, and in that way perhaps track the villains.”

115 “Well, Miss Friend, you sound convincing and what you say about the cold waffles puts a human touch to your tale. But why, in the name of Heaven, if all this is so, did Ursula not write to us?”

“She dreaded what Cheatham might do to your family if you seemed in any way to connive with her. She could not stay another minute in the house with him and she is terribly afraid of him and the evil he might do to her friends and her boys, even more than what he might do to her.”

“She never told us she was afraid of Cheatham.”

“Didn’t she? But you must have known she was unhappy over her mother’s second marriage.”

“She never said so. She always avoided the subject.”

“That’s the real flaw in Ursula’s otherwise admirable character. She is too reticent.”

“That’s better than being a gusher,” exclaimed the young man vehemently.

“Yes,” smiled Josie, amused at the suddenness with which Teddy had veered around concerning Ursula, “but it is hard on a detective,116 who is trying to unravel a mystery, when the persons interested give one nothing to go on. I had a terrible time worming out of Ursula that there was such a person as you and even when she told me there was she gave no intimation that you were—well, a tolerably good-looking young man who had leanings in her direction. She grew pale when she mentioned your name, which led me to think that you were small and dark, with maybe a hare lip.”

Teddy laughed and spoke to his horses.

“And the multi-millionaire?” he asked.

“It’s a lie! I cannot see how you could believe Cheatham. I am sure he has not known where Ursula was until lately, and he has never communicated with her in any way, nor has she with him, since she left Louisville. Has not your mother received a letter from Ursula? She wrote one not long ago and hoped it would reach her before Christmas. I persuaded her that she was wrong to keep silent any longer. Ursula has been cowed by this terrible stepfather until she is afraid to do anything but just hide away. You do believe me, don’t you?”

“Of course, Miss Friend, I can’t help trusting you. I want to trust you so much. I’ll tell117 you I have been very unhappy over Ursula, but I was determined to overcome my love for her because I felt she was not worthy of my regard. I believed all Cheatham said. He is a pleasant, plausible fellow and he has pretended so much feeling for my family because of Ursula’s behavior.

“I see it all now! What fools we have been! Father doesn’t like Mr. Cheatham but Father is such an old-fashioned gentleman that when anyone is in his house he is as polite as can be. Cheatham has been in our house a lot lately, too, when I come to think of it. By Jove, he is coming to dinner today! You’ve simply got to see him. You said something awhile back about detectives. Are you really one?”

“Yes, but don’t give me away. I’m supposed to be out here hunting up rag rugs and hand-made brooms for my arts and crafts shop.”

“Give you away, indeed! I’m too excited about what you have told me and too anxious to help. As for detectives: I read all the stories about them I can get hold of and always think I could have managed the cases better than they did.”

“Good for you!” laughed Josie. “Now118 please tell me what you would do about this case?”

“First, I’d take you home to dinner and let you get a good look at Mr. Cheatham. I’d like to wring his neck.”

“Well, don’t look that way at him or he’ll not be able to eat his dinner. But tell me, please, Mr. Trask, how are you going to explain me to your family?”

“Don’t Mr. Trask me! I’m Teddy now, even more so than when you first got in my cutter.”

“All right, Teddy!”

“I tell you who you are. You’re a girl I used to know at Cornell, but hanged if I haven’t forgotten your name.”

“Miss Friend, Josie Friend. At least that is a right good working name, and since you christened me you should remember it. My real name is Josie O’Gorman.”

“I used to read stories about Detective O’Gorman and his stunts. I tell you he was a peach.”

“He was my father,” said Josie, for the second time that day.

“Jiminy crickets! I’d rather know you than Babe Ruth or Dempsey or Douglas Fairbanks.119 Do you know you haven’t shaken hands with me yet?”

Josie solemnly shook hands with the young man.

“Remember to call me Miss Friend though, or Josie. I would not mention the name of O’Gorman. Crooks are always shy of it and while Cheatham hasn’t been found out yet, I’ll bet he knows who might have caught him if he had broken the eleventh commandment.”

“Well, if I am supposed to have known you well enough at Cornell to pick you up and bring you home to dinner, I reckon I know you well enough to call you plain Josie.”

“Won’t your mother think I’m mighty forward to accept an invitation from you to a family gathering on Christmas day?”

“Oh, I’ll fix Mother. Don’t worry about her. And now, Josie, what am I to say you were doing in Peewee Valley on this cold day?”

“Why not let rag rugs and brooms be the motive? It went down with you all right and why not with them?”

“Yes it did!” he exclaimed scornfully. “I knew all the time you weren’t after rag rugs.”

“Then you knew a lot, because I really am120 going over to this cabin and order a big lot for our shop. You have forgotten the shop. My detective business is supposed to be a side issue and the shop is the all important thing, since it is by running the shop that a number of persons make a living. Being a detective is my art but helping to run the Higgledy Piggledy Shop is my business.”

“All right then, rag rugs and home-made brooms it shall be! I found you standing on your head in a snow drift on your way to Uncle Abe’s cabin and when I set you right side up you turned out to be the Josie Friend I had known at Cornell, where you were specializing in—in—”

“Psychology and domestic science!” said Josie, with a grin.

“Exactly! I then drove you to the cabin. By the way, we’ll get there finally on this road, although it is a long way round, but there is plenty of time before dinner and my horses are simply prancing for a good spin. Now, nobody is to know you ever heard of Ursula and you are to catch Cheatham entirely off his guard.”

“Fine! You have the makings of a real detective in you. In the meantime can you furnish121 the slightest clue for the motive any one might have had for kidnaping poor little Philip?”

Teddy Trask could think of no reason and then Josie related to him all she knew concerning Miss Fitchet’s appearance in Dorfield; how she seemed to shadow Ursula and then disappeared and then about the woman with run-down heels and blonde hair who had evidently been in the room adjoining the apartment occupied by Ursula and her brothers.

“I have a hunch that Cheatham is at the bottom of the whole thing and that Fitchet is in his employ,” said Josie. “Fitchet came to Dorfield to spy out the lay of the land before she went to Florida on this case that she has just left within the last week. Cheatham wanted to know what his stepchildren were doing and how they were living. Why he was interested I do not know. Since then something has arisen that makes him more interested. He sent for Fitchet and she dropped her case in Florida and flew to do his bidding. Philip is now with her, but where? Cheatham has not left Louisville, and as far as we know Fitchet has not returned. I am trying to find out something about Ursula’s Uncle Ben Benson, but nobody seems to know122 of his whereabouts since he left Louisville when his sister married Cheatham.”

“Gee! You sound like the old lady in ‘The Circular Staircase’ or the man in ‘The Gold Bug’.”

“Do you think you might casually bring in the name of Uncle Ben Benson? Ask your father, for instance, if he ever knew him. Say you heard someone mention him at the club and the man wondered if he had died. Say another man at the club was under the impression he was dead—thought he had seen something in a foreign dispatch concerning his death. Just make up any old thing and don’t be too explicit or too much interested.”

“Sure I can! I’ll be the casual one and you do the watching of Cheatham. There’ll more than likely be a big bunch of folks at dinner. Anita always has a crowd around her and Mother and Father rake in guests with a heavy hand around Christmas time. I haven’t asked anyone on my own hook this year, so it is pretty fine that I found you standing on your head in the snowdrift. The truth of the matter is I am really missing Ursula such a lot and I couldn’t seem to make up my mind to jolly123 up much, with her away and getting ready to marry a multi-millionaire.”

Josie patted the big glove on the hand next to her that held the reins to the prancing steeds and the young man looked down at her gratefully. She gave him a merry glance.

“By the way, Teddy, if you see me looking fish-eyed don’t be astonished. I want Cheatham to think I’m so stupid he won’t have to be on his guard with me. Another thing: my shop must not be spoken of by name, as no doubt Fitchet has told him Ursula was working for the Higgledy Piggledies at Dorfield, so suppose you let me represent a firm in Youngstown, Ohio.”

“All right, Miss Particular! What you say goes and nothing you may say and any way you may look won’t astonish me. Watch me be about as big a sleuth as there is in America. Please let me tell you how much happier I am since you got in my cutter.”

“I’m more cheerful, too,” said Josie, “although I shouldn’t be when there is poor Ursula eating her heart out with misery. I couldn’t be as cheerful as I am if I were not perfectly sure we will find little Philip.”

“Sure we will find him,” said Teddy.

CHAPTER XII
IN AN OLD KENTUCKY HOME

The cabin of Sis Minerva and Brer Abe was so picturesque that Josie regretted not having a camera with her. It was of logs with a stone chimney, that leaned outward as though bowing an invitation to Santa Claus to enter. Bright geraniums peeped from the windows, where hung wreaths of holly and swamp berries. A hound barked as they approached and then ran under the house, routing out a hog that had been comfortably scratching his back on the joists of the floor of the lean-to summer kitchen. Several coon skins were nailed to the side of the house, there to tan in the wind and sun—a natural method often employed in the country.

The old couple were at home, enjoying themselves according to their respective tastes. Sis Minerva was stirring up a custard, which she intended to freeze with the timely snow and Abe playing on his old accordion, which was so much the worse for wear it was necessary to125 bribe several of the many grandchildren to stand by and pinch the cracks together to extract anything like a tune from the ancient instrument.

“I done mended and mended ’til ’tain’t no use in mendin’ no mo’. Fas’ as I mends in one place she bus’ out in another, an’ bein’ as I’s got mo’ gran’babies dan I is time I jes uses ’em stid er glue,” Abe explained.

The interior of the cabin was even more picturesque than the exterior. Brer Abe, in his clean Christmas shirt and long tailed brass-buttoned coat, a relic of his coachman days, sat in an arm chair, his feet in grey yarn socks stretched to the cheerful burning logs piled up in the great fireplace. He was playing a sad and mournful hymn on the cracked accordion with three little children hanging desperately to the places that were beyond mending. Sometimes the air demanded that he must stretch his arms far apart and then one little girl would be lifted almost from her feet in her endeavor not to let the “chune git out de wrong way.”

Teddy and Josie peeped in the window for a moment before knocking. The barking of the dog had not been noticed, because of the wailing126 hymn, and all unconscious of an audience the old man squirmed out his melody.

Sis Minerva appeared at the door of the kitchen, a huge yellow bowl in her arms.

“Hi, you, Abe, cain’cha play a perkier chune? My cake dough am likely ter fall with me tryin’ to keep time ter sech a buried-an’ dug-up song. This yer cake air gotter be beat fas’ an’ stiddy so you jes’ change yo’ chune or quit playin’.”

“How kin I carry a fas’ chune when every time I draws out for wind I haster carry two, three gran’babies?” whined the old husband.

“Here, gimme that aircawjun!” exclaimed Sis Minerva, putting down her bowl of cake batter on the highboy out of reach of the many grandchildren. “I’ll mend it in no time. I done saved more’n a sheet or so o’ dat tangle-yo-foot fly paper an’ I boun’ it’ll stick fas’ as yo’ hide.” She produced the fly paper and mended the instrument while Josie and Teddy peered through the flowering geraniums on the homely, happy scene.

Teddy’s knock on the door silenced the noise of the grandchildren, but old Abe must finish his tune, explaining later with many apologies that it was “wuss ter quit in the middle of a127 chune than ter lay off befo’ a sneeze wa’ properly snuz.”

“Please go on with your tune,” begged Teddy.

“And don’t stop stirring your cake,” Josie insisted when Sis Minerva prepared to remove the yellow bowl to the lean-to. “Let me stir it for you. I know how, really and truly.”

She took the bowl from the old woman and, with a practiced hand, began a rhythmic beat that satisfied Sis Minerva her guest was no idle boaster.

“I smell ’possum roasting,” sniffed Teddy.

“Deed an’ you do, an’ sweet ’taters ’long with. I been a-fattenin’ dat ’possum fo’ nigh onter two months, not dat he wa’ no spindle shanks when I cotched him. De trouble am de chilluns done got so ’tached ter de animule I feel kinder like I’d done skun a gran’baby fo’ Chris’mus dinner. De smell of him a cookin’ air put heart in us all, an’ I reckons by de time we sets up to de table we won’t feel so like we’s a-eatin’ of kinfolks.”

“We done ruminated right smart ’bout whether we’d make a burnt offerin’ of de tame possum or my ol’ gander an’ I puts in a word fo’ de gander an’ cas’ my vote for de ’possum,”128 Sis Minerva explained. “You see dat ol’ gander air already so tough he cain’t git no tougher an’ de ’possum wa’ so fat he couldn’t git no fatter, so all things bein’ ekal we skun de ’possum.”

“I’ve been sent to you by your cousin in Louisville, Aunt Mandy at Miss Lucy Leech’s. She tells me you weave carpets and make quilts and that Uncle Abe can make those lovely brooms with the handles formed of the broom straw wrapped with split oak,” said Josie.

“Well, ain’t it the trufe? Lawsamussy chil’, Mandy am right. Me’n Abe keeps right well, with me a plaitin’ rugs an’ patchin’ quilts an’ him a-fashionin’ brooms dat one time folks scorned when fact’ry brooms got so plentiful like, but now air come back inter fashion sence white folks took ter livin’ in one story houses what they calls bugaboos, with open fire-places an’ brick hearths what has ter be swep’ up.”

Josie must see the quilts Sis Minerva had on hand and admire the log-cabin, pine-tree and rising-sun patterns. Orders were given for several quilts and rugs and as many brooms as Uncle Abe could spare. The shipping of the wares to another state seemed to be an insurmountable129 obstacle to the old couple, but Teddy promised to attend to it for them and their minds were set at rest.

“I’ll have ter git busy an’ raise mo’ broom straw,” sighed Uncle Abe. “I’s gittin’ right stiff in de jints fer breakin’ up lan’ an’ I ain’t got a single gran’baby big enough ter mo’n han’le a hoe.”

“But where there are so many grandchildren there must be some children,” suggested Josie. “Haven’t you any sons and daughters?”

“Plenty of ’em, but dey’s mos’ly lef’ dese parts. We hears from some er ’em now an’ den an’ dey ’members us when dey gits flush an’ when dey gits broke an’ evy now an den one er de litter turns up with a baby fer de ol’ folks ter raise. De gals all got married but mos’ of ’em is out in service an’ nobody don’t want ter hire ’em with ’cumbrances. An’ de boys dey all got married but looks lak dey wives air all time dyin’ or something an’ den de offspring lands up here at Peewee Valley. Me’n my Minervy ain’t a kickin’. De chilluns air right smart comp’ny fer us an’ we air a bringin’ ’em up ter wuck. De bigges’ gal kin make the purties’ baskets out’n biled honeysuckle vines you ever130 seen. Dey done sol’ de whole lot in Lou’ville befo’ Chris’mus so they ain’t got none on han’, but I’s a-wonderin’ if you ain’t wantin’ some er dem too.”

“I certainly do,” said Josie. “No doubt they could be shipped with the other things and I am sure there would be a sale for the baskets in Dorfield.”

The young basket maker grinned with delight. “Does you fancy big uns or lil’ uns?” she asked with an air of being ready to go to work immediately.

“Both, and medium-sized ones, too.”

The price for the various commodities being settled upon, Teddy suggested it might be time to eat their own turkey and let Uncle Abe and Aunt Minerva eat their ’possum. With many protestations of mutual satisfaction from buyer and sellers, Josie was tucked in the cutter and the eager horses started on their homeward journey.

“If you don’t mind, I’ll stop at the post office on my way home,” said Teddy. “The postmistress is mighty nice about letting you have mail on holidays if she happens to be around.”

She did happen to be around and Teddy came131 out bearing the letter from Ursula to Mrs. Trask.

“Do you know I’ve more than half a mind not to give this to Mother yet? She’d be so full of it she couldn’t help giving herself away to old Cheatham and he mustn’t know we know a thing about Ursula yet.”

“Young man, Uncle Sam needs you in the diplomatic service and needs you badly,” declared Josie. “May I ask what you do when you are not befriending female detectives?”

“I am a lawyer,” answered Teddy. “Some day I intend to be a justice of the Supreme Court, but up to this time I have collected a few bad debts and sued the Louisville and Nashville Railroad for one cow belonging to a disreputable family living over by the crossing. I won my case and the disreputable family not only got paid for the cow but had beefsteaks to burn, to say nothing of the hide which they sold to a tanner.”

“Good!” laughed Josie. “I wish I had studied law, too. I am really contemplating taking it up if I can ever get time to spare. It might have been a good stunt if I had put my imaginary time at Cornell on law instead of domestic science.”

132 “Well, please don’t mix me up on what you did at Cornell. I’ve got it firmly fixed in my mind that psychology and domestic science were your tickets and I mustn’t get involved in my story.”

“All right, I’ll keep dark about the law if you wish me to, but I certainly do wish I might have taken even an imaginary course.”

CHAPTER XIII
A GREAT CHRISTMAS FEAST

The Christmas guests had gathered when Teddy drew rein at the yard gate of his father’s hospitable mansion. There were several cars parked along the driveway and a large family sleigh was being unloaded just ahead of him.

“Christmas gift, Jo! Christmas gift, Sue—you, too, Billy! Christmas gift, Aunt Julia! Christmas gift, Uncle Tom!” he called, and in turn was deluged with cries of “Christmas gift” from the occupants of the sleigh.

“It was bully of you all to drive over. Mother was so afraid you might not venture in the snow, but I was sure you would come. I want all of you to meet my friend Miss Friend, Josie for short. She’s heard a lot about you and is just dying to know you.”

“I am sure we have heard a lot about you, too,” murmured Aunt Julia politely.

“More about you than you have about us,134 I’ll be bound,” said Uncle Tom with a genial wink.

As Josie had never heard a word about them and was not even aware of the surnames of these kindly kinsmen of her host, she could vouch for their having at least heard as much about her as she had about them and as they knew her last name—that is the last name she had assumed—she might even agree that they knew more of her than she did of them. At any rate, they were kind and cordial and willing to take her on Teddy’s say-so. It was Christmas day and Josie was determined to make the most of the opportunity to have a good old-fashioned time in a good old-fashioned way, while she was engaged in picking up as much information as possible concerning Ursula and the kidnaping of little Philip.

The house was gay with holly and running cedar, with great bunches of mistletoe hung from the chandeliers and wreaths of swamp berries in every window. The piny odor of the evergreens, mingled with that of choice foods, made Josie’s nostrils twitch with pleasure.

“Mother, I’ve brought a friend in to dinner,” Teddy said simply. He took Josie’s arm and135 presented her to the sweet-faced lady who was standing in the middle of the spacious parlor. “Josie Friend, Mother.”

“I am so glad to see you.” The words were so simple and so genuinely spoken that Josie was sorry, even for a short time, to have to seem to be something she was not. She longed to be able to tell this lovely woman who she was and how she happened to be in Peewee Valley on that white Christmas. However, she realized the importance of carrying out the program she and Teddy had planned and merely said, “Thank you,” in response to Teddy’s mother and, “Thank you,” again when Colonel Trask was equally cordial.

“That is Cheatham!” Teddy whispered, as a tall, rather commanding, figure appeared in the doorway. Josie controlled herself not to look at the man too closely, but began talking to Uncle Tom, who had taken a stand near her. Uncle Tom was easy to talk to because all one had to do was listen.

“Pleasant gathering,” he said “Mighty pleasant. Been coming here to Christmas dinner ever since I can remember. Married Julia Bowles, you know, Anita’s sister—Mrs. Trask,136 that is—but I reckon Teddy has told you all the ins and outs of the family. Fine family, good housekeepers, good friends, plenty of looks, plenty of money, good characters, good citizens. I don’t always like their friends, but it’s none of my business who comes here.”

“Who is that man in the doorway?” asked Josie, designating Cheatham, thinking she might get a side line on his traits from Uncle Tom.

“Cheatham! He’ll do it, all right, all right. I can’t abide that man. But I’m not obeying the rules of hospitality to be criticizing a fellow guest to a fellow guest.”

“I won’t tell,” laughed Josie.

“Of course not. Anybody that’s a friend of Teddy’s is sure to be a good sport—that is, anybody but Cheatham. I never could understand my sister-in-law and her son in allowing that man to darken their doors. That’s what he does to a door when he enters it. He sure does darken it. As for Colonel Trask, I know he can’t stand the man any more than I can, but he’s one of these old time courtly men who let the women folk rule them. Me? I tell you nobody bosses me. If my Julia tried that game on me, I tell you I’d—I’d—”

137 “Tom, go out and look in the sleigh for my glasses. Don’t say ‘send one of the children,’ because I’m sure they would break them. Go along, Tom! That’s a dear,” said Aunt Julia in a tone not to be questioned.

“Yes, my dear!” from the valorous Tom.

“I’ll go help find them,” suggested Josie. “Men never know how to find things,” and then she whispered to Uncle Tom as they started towards the front door, “I really believe your wife’s glasses are hanging by a hook on the front of her dress. I saw something dangling there. Why don’t you look?”

“I’ll bet they are. Won’t I have a good laugh on her, though!”

Josie was right and Uncle Tom was jubilant over the joke on Aunt Julia.

“I tell you, Miss Friend, you are a regular detective.”

As a detective was the last thing Josie wanted to seem to be, she was almost sorry she had seen the eyeglasses, but at least she was able to detain Uncle Tom in conversation concerning Mr. Cheatham.

“You were saying you didn’t like that handsome man over there,” she suggested.

138 “Handsome! As handsome as ten-cent store silver! He’s a crook, I tell you—a veritable crook. How decent people receive him is more than I can see.”

“What does he do that is crooked?” asked Josie innocently.

“That’s just where his crookedness comes in,” exploded Uncle Tom. “Nobody can put their fingers on his crookedness. He always manages to get out before he gets in.”

“Is he married?”

“Widower with stepchildren, and now pretending he has to keep the children in luxury although they even tried to kill him. Some people in Louisville believe him, but not me. You can fool some of the people all of the time and all the people some of the time but Cheatham hasn’t ever fooled me. I know a crook when I see him and he is as crooked as a snake.”

At this moment Josie was carried off by Teddy to meet some more of the friends gathered under his father’s roof for Christmas dinner.

“Related to the Virginia Friends?” one old man asked. “Petersburg people?”

Josie was fearful that she might get caught in a genealogical web and quickly repudiated Virginia139 kin, explaining she was the last of her line.

Dinner soon was announced, much to Josie’s relief. Not only was she hungry, but she felt that when the guests began to eat they would not evince quite so much interest in her relations. Teddy arranged matters so that they sat directly opposite Cheatham.

“We can look right down his throat,” he explained in a whisper. “You watch him and I’ll get him going.”

Josie had heard of groaning boards, but she had never heard one before. The table at the Trasks’—although it was of solid mahogany—literally creaked with the weight of the Christmas dinner. The fact that it was stretched to its utmost length and the drop-leaf side-tables pressed into service to make it even longer may have been responsible for its audible groaning. A twenty-pound turkey at one end, and a huge home-cured ham at the other, were flanked with dishes of escalloped oysters, mashed potatoes, squash, spinach, celery, chicken salad, every kind of pickle known to housewives, cranberry sauce, currant jelly and other things that escaped one’s eye in the multiplicity of dishes.

Little attempt was made to serve the guests by140 the numerous servants, who contented themselves by standing against the walls, grinning happily over the prospect of the “leavin’s” that were sure to follow such a feast and the “totin’s” they could no doubt accomplish on that blessed Christmas day.

There were at least thirty guests seated at the long table in the great dining room, and in the breakfast room adjoining the children were holding high carnival at a table prepared especially for them. Their happy voices and loud clamorings for turkey gizzards and drum sticks could be heard above the clatter of knives and forks and tongues in the grown-ups’ dining room.

“We always have a general scramble on Christmas day,” Teddy explained to Josie. “There is no use in trying to have orderly service or put on any style. It is always catch-as-catch-can at this Christmas dinner. The same people come year after year, with an occasional addition. Ursula used always to come, but this is the first time Cheatham has been here on this day. He has been getting powerful thick out here lately, now I come to think about it, and I’m just wondering why.”

Josie was not wondering at all. It was plain141 to see that Mr. Cheatham was paying court to Anita Trask, but, brother like, Teddy was the last to suspect that anyone was attentive to his sister. Anita was a very pretty girl, with her brother’s fair hair and blue, blue eyes. She was young and a bit shy, and evidently flattered by the devotion of the handsome, middle-aged man who was seated next to her at the table.

“Ursula, Ursula,” thought Josie, “what a mistake you have made in concealing from these kind friends the trouble you have had with your stepfather! Had Mr. Trask dreamed of the real character of the man, he never would have permitted him the freedom of his house and the right to pay court to his daughter. Too great reticence and secretiveness is worse than being a downright blabber. I only hope it is not too late to spare Anita a heartache. She is certainly interested in her neighbor, who no doubt can be as fascinating as he can be cruel and overbearing.”

Josie began to feel sorrier than ever for Ursula, because she was not in her usual place at this unique gathering. Such a genial host and gracious hostess! Such hungry guests and such plentiful food! Such willing, if ineffectual, servants!142 Such gay badinage and good-natured raillery! In ten minutes Josie felt almost as though she belonged. Everybody accepted her simply and naturally. If she was Teddy’s friend, she was everybody’s friend. She never was called on to explain her presence in Peewee Valley and the tale of rag rugs and brooms and bed quilts and baskets did not have to be told. Uncle Tom had begun to be a little curious and was beginning on his questionnaire when cranberry sauce and a turkey thigh switched him off the track and he forgot he had not found out all he wanted to know.

CHAPTER XIV
A TRAP FOR MR. CHEATHAM

The time had come for mince pie and plum pudding, wine, jelly and ice cream—not that anyone had room for everything, but one could always try. The table was being cleared and there was a lull in the hubbub of conversation as well as the clatter of knife and fork.

“Father,” Teddy said quite distinctly and in a voice that carried to the foot of the table where Colonel Trask had been carving the ham as only he could, “Father, I heard the other day at the club, at least I think it was there, but I can’t remember just who it was that said it, that Mr. Ben Benson was dead.”

“Ah, indeed!”

“Yes! The man said he had seen a notice of it in some foreign newspaper. At least, I think that was what he said.”

“Poor Ursula!” ejaculated Mrs. Trask. “I wonder if it is true. But you must know, Mr. Cheatham,” she said, turning to that guest.

144 “By Jove! Of course!” said the perfidious Teddy, pretending he had forgotten the connection between Cheatham and the subject of his remark. “Why he was your brother-in-law!”

If at this juncture a fellow diner had taken the trouble to notice the young lady introduced by the son of the house as Miss Josie Friend, he would have seen a remarkably stupid-looking young person with dull eyes and no expression to speak of—quite a different person from the gay, clever girl who had been riding in Teddy’s cutter not so many minutes before. In fact, Mr. Cheatham did glance at her when Teddy had first mentioned the name of Ben Benson. Not that he was attracted by her in the least, or had any curiosity concerning her, but he had to look somewhere and it happened to be at her. In spite of his confusion over Teddy’s announcement it flashed through his mind that the girl across the table had no doubt eaten too much turkey and roast ham. He wondered if she could hold plum pudding.

The truth of the matter was Josie had eaten sparingly, although every mouthful had been enjoyed, but she felt that her wits must not be dulled by over-feeding. Mr. Cheatham, not foreseeing145 that his wits would be in demand, had helped himself plentifully and genially to every dish that came his way and was in consequence not in a condition to control his countenance when Teddy blurted out that he had heard Ben Benson was dead.

Mrs. Trask’s “poor Ursula” but added to his discomposure, and when she turned on him and demanded of him further information he could cheerfully have twisted her gentle neck. When Teddy had announced in his loud, ringing tones that Ben Benson was his brother-in-law, Mr. Cheatham felt the blood mounting to his face and for a moment a strange dizziness held him.

“Arrested digestion!” was Josie’s mental diagnosis. “A shock coming too closely on the heels of ham and turkey and various side dishes.”

Had Mr. Cheatham realized that his face had taken on first a crimson then a purple tinge, and now was fading to green, he would have been more unhappy than he was, and he was uncomfortable enough. He found his voice somewhere and seemed to raise it as if through packed-down layers of dinner. He wondered if it sounded as strange to other persons as to him.

146 “I—I know nothing about Ben Benson, but I do not believe he is dead. I can assure you my stepdaughter has been in constant correspondence with him and surely if he had died she would have known. Although her behavior to me has been unnatural beyond belief, I am sure she would at least inform me should she learn of her uncle’s death.”

“Of course she would!” declared Teddy heartily.

“Of course!” murmured Mrs. Trask.

Mr. Cheatham’s digestive process was resumed, so decided Josie. Green gave place to violet and then to his accustomed ruddy complexion. He heaved a great sigh and accepted the wedge of mince pie handed him by Anita.

Josie felt Teddy’s arm give hers a gentle pressure. She was grateful to him for not attempting to catch her eye.

“You might hit him again before so very long,” she suggested, as the clatter of pie forks again made a confidential remark possible.

“Watch me!” murmured Teddy in an audible tone, and a casual listener would have thought he meant watch him eat pie.

“I wonder if Mr. Benson has made any147 money,” Teddy ventured in a loud conversational tone. “I gathered from the men I happened to hear speak of him that the general opinion was he had done pretty well since he left home. I can’t recall what they said he did—sheep in Australia—diamond mines in Africa—”

“Give me sheep every time,” broke in Uncle Tom. “Ben Benson was a good fellow and loyal to the core. I do hope he hasn’t died and that he has made money and will come back here and look after his sister’s children.”

Uncle Tom had over-eaten, too, and it had made him slightly crabbed and inclined to pick a quarrel. So, not liking Cheatham, he felt a row with him would be a grand top-off to the heavy dinner. Cheatham, however, only turned purple again and let the insult pass.

“I understand Ursula is to be married soon,” said Mrs. Trask gently, “and to a very rich man, but no doubt she would be overjoyed to see her uncle again.”

“Well! Well! Who is the man?” asked Uncle Tom. He addressed his remark to Mr. Cheatham and that unhappy man was compelled to answer.

“My stepdaughter has not confided in me to148 the extent of informing me of her fiance’s name. She has merely formally announced her intention of marrying and divulged that the man is a millionaire.”

At this point Josie felt it difficult to hold the stupid expression she had assumed. She could but remember poor Ursula’s poverty and her brave struggle to support her little brothers. Even now she was in sorrow and misery at the loss of Philip. Was Ursula having any Christmas turkey or any dinner at all for that matter? She trusted Irene and the kind Conants to see to her creature comforts. She determined the moment she got back to Louisville to get Bob Dulaney on the long distance telephone and find out all about her forlorn friend.

It seemed hard that the truth should be kept for even one hour from Colonel and Mrs. Trask and Anita. Here they were believing the most cruel things of their former friend, while the poor girl was in extreme misery in a strange town. Josie was thankful when she remembered the kind Conants and Irene. She was sure Elizabeth Wright and Mary Louise would come forward to offer their friendship and help and that Bob Dulaney and Danny Dexter and all of the149 persons connected remotely with the Higgledy Piggledies would be ready with sympathy and assistance.

“I can’t see that I am getting anywhere,” Josie said to Teddy when dinner was finally over and the guests sought drawing room, hall and sitting room. “We know that Cheatham does not like to mention his stepchildren and avoids the subject of Ben Benson, but can you make anything else of the business?”

“Sure I can! He knows something about Ben Benson and he wishes to appear innocent of all concern about him.”

“I wish I could get into his house. I am sure I could find incriminating evidence of some kind.”

“That’s easy. You just leave it to me and also follow me.” Teddy sauntered up to where Mr. Cheatham was standing talking to Mrs. Trask. He was evidently bent on disabusing his hostess’ mind of any belief in the report of Ben Benson’s death.

“Just idle rumor,” he asserted.

“I am sure it was,” broke in Teddy amiably. “Of course, if you know nothing of it it could not be true. By the way, Mr. Cheatham, how is150 your radio machine coming on? Is it satisfactory?”

“Very! I am quite a fan.”

“So I understand. Do you know here is a young lady who has never heard a concert or lecture by wireless?” said Teddy, drawing Josie into the circle. “She is curious to hear one, too. She just told me it was the height of her ambition. Anita is a novice at radio also. As for me, I get quite fed up on wireless at the club.”

“And you, Mrs. Trask, are you interested?” asked Mr. Cheatham.

“Yes, indeed!”

“Well, suppose we make up a little party—say for to-morrow. All of you, your guest of course,” turning with stiff courtesy to Josie, whom he had taken for granted was a house guest of his hostess. “We will have dinner at seven and then we can listen in on the radio all evening. Will Colonel Trask do me the honor to be one of the party?”

Colonel Trask pleaded other engagements. Teddy whispered to his mother not to disabuse Cheatham’s mind concerning Josie’s being for the time a member of their household. Mrs.151 Trask had taken a liking to Josie from the first and in spite of being somewhat mystified at her sudden appearance at the Christmas party was ready to accept her as Teddy’s friend and willing to defer all questionings as to who she was or how she happened to be in Peewee Valley.

“Now aren’t you getting somewhere?” whispered Teddy.

Josie had to acknowledge that she was. To enter the old Ellett house as a guest of the present master was surely an opportunity to search for the motive of the kidnaping.

“After everyone is gone we must tell your mother about Ursula, and you must give her the letter from the poor dear,” said Josie.

The guests soon dispersed and then Josie and Teddy were closeted with Mrs. Trask, who listened with eagerness to all they had to say of Ursula. She wept over the letter and was violent in what she had to say of Cheatham, who had so wickedly estranged them from the poor girl. She readily agreed with her son and Josie that for the time being they must not let Cheatham know that his perfidy was known to them.

CHAPTER XV
AN ANONYMOUS LETTER

While Josie feasted and schemed in the pleasant home of Colonel and Mrs. Trask in Peewee Valley, there were sad hearts in Dorfield. With no news of little Philip, and no word from Josie, Ursula had almost wept her spirit from her eyes.

Uncle Peter and Aunt Hannah Conant had done all they could to make Ursula and Ben feel that they were a real uncle and aunt instead of chance acquaintances. Irene had begged them to come and stay with her and had eagerly insisted upon sharing her room with Ursula while Ben was to have the tiny hall room next to the old couple, but Ursula felt she must remain in her own little apartment, in case some word from Philip might arrive.

Josie had departed on the midnight train and the rest of the night dragged by, Ben sleeping in spite of himself, because he did not want to sleep at all, but his heavy eyelids refused to153 stay open. Ursula occasionally dropped into a doze but would awaken with a start, dreaming someone was bringing news of her little brother.

Christmas morning dawned with a bright sun sparkling on the deep snow. Dorfield was alive with sleighing parties and holiday noises, the popping of fire crackers and shouts of boys and girls coasting down the hill on the main street of the town, regardless of traffic regulations. There was a good hill on that street and coasting was a sport long before traffic regulations were even heard of—and so it continued.

Mary Louise and her Danny came immediately to Ursula as soon as the news of Philip was telephoned to them by Irene. They, too, insisted upon taking the Elletts home with them, but Ursula still was determined upon staying in her own home. Elizabeth Wright appeared on the wings of the wind and eager to do anything possible for the girl whom she had learned to love and respect.

“And dear Philip,” she cried, with tears running down her cheeks, “you know how much I loved him, Ursula. I didn’t mean to say loved him—I mean love him. We are going to have him back with us in no time.”

154 Captain Charlie Lonsdale telephoned from police headquarters that no stone was being left unturned in the search for the child and Bob Dulaney came twice within an hour to find out if any news had been received by Ursula and to assure her that he was getting busy.

The day passed, as days do, whether they be gay or sad. At dusk a boy brought two telegrams for Ursula, one from Josie and one from Teddy Trask.

Josie’s was merely a ten-word message of hope and cheer with directions as to how to reach her in case of news of the missing child. Teddy did not confine himself to the usual ten words, but spread himself as though he were writing a night letter. In it he assured Ursula of his lasting regard and informed her that he was doing what he could to assist Josie.

Ursula’s heart was a little lighter after reading the telegrams. She felt that Josie was sure to do the wise and prudent thing, and the fact that her dear friends, the Trasks, were once more in touch with her, made her feel that her trouble was at least shared.

Bob Dulaney came in again to tell her he had just had a talk over the long distance ’phone155 with Josie, who had called him up asking for news, and had told him she was hard at work on the case and had got the police force of Louisville interested also.

“Josie is a regular peach when it comes to finding kids and she will land little Philip in no time,” declared Bob. “That girl has a born instinct for going right. She’d sure make a good gum-shoe reporter. Did you ever hear how she and I nabbed the thief who was going off with Mary Louise’s wedding presents?”

Ursula had heard it but she pretended she hadn’t and Bob had the extreme pleasure of recounting the whole adventure in his best newspaper style.

“Now don’t forget, Miss Ellett, that if you receive any communication of any sort you will inform me or Chief Lonsdale.”

“Yes, Josie made me promise that I would do that. Why do you think they have taken my little brother, Mr. Dulaney? Do you think there was any motive but simply one to annoy and distress me?”

“I do. People don’t engage in such dangerous crime just to be annoying. Josie is out hunting a motive and I am working with that156 thought as a basis of investigation too. I don’t know how the police are proceeding. They usually work with a kind of sledge hammer method that hits what gets in its way but doesn’t get into the cracks much, or seek out the hidden things.”

Bob’s visit cheered Ursula. It was a comforting thing to know that something was being done. She felt helpless and useless herself. All she could do was sit by the window in her living room and gaze out on the snow, wondering where her little brother was and if he thought of her and missed her as she did him. She was thankful that the kidnaper had taken his overcoat and warm sweater. At least he would not be cold. She remembered that his shoes had but recently been half soled. His feet would be dry. Whoever stole him did not want him to suffer or he or she would not have taken his clothes. Even his little red mittens and woolen comforter were gone. Perhaps he was being well treated after all. Who could want to be unkind to little Philip? So ran Ursula’s thoughts.

That night Ursula slept. A confidence in the goodness of God enveloped her like a mantle. A strange feeling of peace came over her. Ben157 noticed it as he kissed her good-night after they had knelt together and prayed.

“Why, Sister, your face looks as if a light was behind it.”

“There is, Ben. It is the light of Hope and Faith. It is wicked of me to be so despondent. I am going to keep on hoping and praying and believing and I am sure our baby will be brought back to us.”

“Oh, Sister, how glad I am! I won’t be ashamed if I go to sleep to-night. Last night I kept pinchin’ myself to keep awake, although I felt all the time that Phil was comin’ back to us.”

“My dear, indeed you must sleep so you will grow big and strong and can take care of little Philip and me,” smiled Ursula.

The morning after Christmas found them much calmer and the confidence of the night before remained with them. Ursula busied herself by cleaning her apartment and darning all the stockings, although she could not help shedding a few tears over the big holes in the knees of Philip’s.

“He got those playin’ bear,” said Ben. “Phil sure does love to play grizzly.”

158 Another day passed and no news. The same persons called and the same telephoned. Mary Louise sent Ursula a dainty tray of food and insisted upon Ben’s dining with Danny and her. Ursula could not make up her mind to leave her apartment. The moment she left might be the one chosen for some news to come from her boy. She was delighted, however, to have Ben dine with the Dexters, in fact, she endeavored to have Ben enjoy himself much as he would had Philip been at home.

“One of the shortest days of all the year,” thought Ursula, “and yet how long it has seemed.” She looked out on the darkening street. In a moment the electric lights on the corners were shining, but Ursula sat in the dusk. They lived on a quiet street where few vehicles passed. She saw an automobile stop at the corner and idly watched a man get out and start walking along the snowy sidewalk. There was nothing at all interesting about the man except that the car from which he had alighted did not move off. If he had business up this street why should he walk when he might have ridden. It was a battered car of an old make, swung on high springs, and had evidently seen better days.159 The light on the corner was bright and the newly fallen snow made that part of the street as visible as it would have been in broad daylight. Ursula had not turned on her burners, but peered from a darkened room.

The man walked rapidly along the street and then disappeared. The girl put her face close to the pane but could see no sign of him.

“I believe he came into this house,” she said to herself. “Ah, but there he is again!” She saw him hurry down the street, jump into the old-fashioned car and then he was gone.

Ursula pulled down her shade and turned on the light. She glanced at her watch. At least two hours must pass before Ben would be returning from dinner at the Dexters’. What could she do with those long two hours? She could not believe she was the same girl who had been busy every moment of the day and eager always for a few free moments that she might conscientiously give to reading. There were new books on her table, gifts from the friends she had made in Dorfield, magazines with the leaves uncut—but she could not put her mind on reading.

Ursula glanced about the room, her eyes wandering. A piece of white paper was under her160 door, put there since Ben had gone out. An advertisement, no doubt.

She picked it up. It was a letter in a dirty envelope, sealed but not stamped, addressed in pencil to Miss Ursula Ellett, in a handwriting that looked as though each letter had been painfully drawn. Ursula feverishly tore open the envelope and read:

“Yore uncle Ben is ded and you are his air. He maid a lot of money in africa on dimonds. I knowed him in africa and by rites I orter have half of his money but he cheted me. I rekon I have beet the news of Ben’s deth to the states but now I have yore kid bruther in my keepin and I will keep the same until you sware to hand over my part of what you will get as air when you come in to the same.

“Yore bruther is enjoyin good helth and hopes this finds you the same. I will not say what will hapen if you do not promis to give me half the douh. If you tell anybody about this I will beat yore bruther. All you have to do is sware you will do as I say and when you get yore hands on the161 money which will be handed to you by a english lawyer you put aside one half and I will let you know wat you are to do with it and at the same time you will get back yor bruther.

“The english lawyer will be in lewisville this weke. If you will do as I say and want to get yore bruther back safe you must put a ad in the lewisville currier journal and I will note the same. Just say Barkis is willin that is enuf. You are a honnerable girl and will keep yore promise if not beware. Excuse haste and a bad pen. Most respectful yore well wisher but one who Ben Benson cheted. Annonermus.”

Ursula sank on a chair. She felt that she might faint but that fainting would be a very foolish performance when action was necessary.

“Uncle Ben dead!” she cried. “I always hoped he would come back to me. What shall I do? What shall I do? Of course I’ll give half of whatever he has left me to get my Philip back. I’ll give all of it—anything.”

Suddenly she remembered that she had promised Josie that no matter what communication162 came she would report immediately to Bob Dulaney or Captain Lonsdale.

“But he says he will beat Philip if I tell anybody about this. How am I to know Uncle Ben is really dead and if he is that he has left me a fortune. How will this person know whether I have told anybody or not? How could this person have found me? Who is he and how could he have slipped up to my apartment without my hearing him in the hall?”

Suddenly the remembrance of the man who had got out of the rickety old car at the corner flashed through her mind. Could he be the kidnaper?

“It says I am honorable and I promised Josie to let them know and I will do it.” She went to the telephone and called up police headquarters. Captain Charlie was on the wire in a moment and deeply interested in what she had to tell him.

“Perhaps I am wrong, but I can’t help thinking a man I saw get out of a car at the corner brought the letter,” she said.

“Well, well, perhaps!” he answered. “I’ll send a plain clothes man around to see you immediately.”

163 Ursula then called up Bob Dulaney. He was all excitement and greatly interested in the man in the high old car.

“I’m going out in my Lizzie and get that man right now. You say it was headed south? Then it must have come from the north and no doubt will turn around and go back the way it came. So long!”

“Please take a policeman with you,” begged Ursula.

“Not on your life! They are too heavyweight for me. I am like the heroes in the movies and go for my man alone. I may even tie a handkerchief around my face and make him hold up his hands.”

CHAPTER XVI
BOB DULANEY’S CHASE

Ursula could not help smiling at Bob’s enthusiasm. She knew that he had great sympathy for her, but at the same time she was sure he was enjoying himself hugely being what he called “a gum-shoe reporter.”

It seemed to her as though she had hardly put down the receiver after telephoning him when a prolonged tooting called her to the window, and there was Bob in his small, shabby racer whizzing by the house.

“Anyhow, I’ll soon know something,” sighed the girl. “I wish I had Josie here to counsel me. So it isn’t Mr. Cheatham and Miss Fitchet after all! I can’t telegraph such a complicated thing as this letter, but I will write immediately and get the letter to Josie on the midnight train, special delivery.”

She was glad of the occupation of writing and with great care she copied the communication165 found under her door and enclosed the copy in her letter to Josie.

“I am enclosing the envelope in which the letter came so you may see the kind of writing, dear Josie,” she wrote. “I know you set great store by such things. The letter itself I am afraid to trust to the mails, but will keep it carefully until I see you. Bob has gone to catch the man who put the letter under my door, but in the meantime I shall mail this and will follow it by a telegram.”

She was afraid to leave the apartment to mail the letter, thinking news of some kind might some while she was out, so she knocked on the door of the nervous, middle-aged bachelor, the one who had so carefully poked up the chimneys with a hearth broom in vain search of Philip, and asked him to attend to getting the letter off for her. He was glad to be of any assistance to his pretty neighbor and gallantly donned his goloshes and set out for the post office.

Then Ursula sat down to wait. She felt happier. Anyhow her beloved child was not dead. As for poor Uncle Ben, she was not at all sure he was dead, and although she had been very fond of him, he had been away from Louisville166 so long she could not make up her mind to weep very much over him—certainly not until she knew for sure that he had really passed away. The fortune reputed to have been left her she almost forgot about. The realization came to her with a start. Suppose she really had been left a fortune! What a difference it would make in her life.

“I’d rather have Uncle Ben here to love and protect me than all kinds of money,” she said to herself. “Anyhow I’ll have to go to Louisville as soon as my boy is found. Since Mr. Cheatham is not the one at the back of the kidnaping I shall not dread seeing him as much as I fancied I would. Indeed, I am ashamed to have harbored such a suspicion of him. Perhaps I have been to blame too. Maybe he is not so black as I have always painted him.”

The plain clothes man from Captain Lonsdale was the next person to mount the stairs to Ursula’s apartment. He was a stolid individual, but had a kind blue eye and no doubt was more keen witted than he appeared to be. Ursula remembered Josie’s assumed stupidity when she was working on a case and felt perhaps this man Donner was pursuing the same tactics. She167 showed him the letter and told him what had happened, describing the ancient automobile and the man who had walked up the street immediately before she had noticed the letter under her door.

“You done right to phone the Cap’n,” said Donner. “These here blackmailers would be brought to justice oftener if the folks weren’t so scairt of them. Ladies are usually the worst of the bunch for taking them serious like and letting them get the bits between their teeth. Most ladies in your fix would have laid low about the letter and handed over whatever they asked just to make sure the kid was safe. I tell you, lady, the kid is just as safe, and a deal sight safer, with your telling us about this letter than he would have been if you had just kep’ it to yourself.”

“I had to let Captain Lonsdale know about it, because I promised Miss O’Gorman I would. Somehow I feel as though she knows best about my affairs.”

“Sure she does! I wasn’t strong for women policemen—policewomen, I believe they call them—until I had a case to work up alongside of that Miss Josie O’Gorman, and I tell you168 then I got to thinking that the Almighty must have took out some of Adam’s brains along with the rib when he made Eve, and that Josie girl got a good share of them. Did you ever hear about how she caught the thieves that were carrying off Mrs. Danny Dexter’s wedding presents?”

Ursula quickly assured him she had, as she could not contemplate having to hear the tale again and she felt that the sooner the kindly officer got on his job of hunting up the kidnapers the better for all concerned. She wished him good luck and politely got rid of him.

Ben came home full of the delightful time he had spent with the Dexters, also full of a good dinner.

“Did you eat anything, Sister?” he asked, pressing his rosy cheek to Ursula’s pale one.

“I forgot to eat,” confessed Ursula.

“Well, you must remember,” declared Ben. “I’m gonter get you some supper. There’s oodles in the ice box. Now you just sit still and I’ll fix you up in no time.”

Ursula held the boy to her and told him of the letter she had found under the door, and then read it to him.

169 “The dirty pup!” was all he could say. “Don’t let him fool you, Sis. You call up the police—”

“I’ve done it, dear, and already they have started in to hunt for the person who brought the letter.”

“Ain’t Uncle Ben the one I’m named for?”

“Yes, dear!”

“Well, he never cheated this hound.”

“Of course not! That hasn’t worried me for a moment. Uncle Ben was the soul of honor. I feel very sad at the thought he may be dead. I wish I might have seen him again. Poor Uncle Ben!”

The boy busied himself with a tray of food for his sister, and then began the process of endeavoring to keep his eyes open. He was ashamed of being so sleepy when his beloved sister was certainly not going to close her eyes until some report was brought her by either Bob Dulaney or Donner.

“Go on to bed, honey,” insisted Ursula. “It is much better for you to go to sleep. Didn’t I tell you you must sleep a lot so you can grow up big and take care of me?”

“Will you call me if you need me?”

170 “Of course I will, because I depend on you all the time.”

“Well, let me keep on my clothes and sleep on the sofa, so I can wake up easy.”

“All right, dear, wherever you want to sleep, just so you sleep.”

So Ben was tucked in on the sofa, with the light carefully screened from his eyes, and again Ursula waited.

At eleven o’clock Bob Dulaney stopped his little car in front of the door and ran lightly up the steps.

“I saw your light and stopped in.”

“Please, what news?” she asked excitedly.

“Well, I’ve done some eliminating, but that’s all,” said Bob dejectedly. “But don’t you get down-hearted because we’ll keep going until the kid is found.”

“I’ll keep on hoping. Only tell me, please.”

“I raced along the road I thought the old car had taken and in spite of a puncture and getting out of gas and then out of water I finally came up with the worst looking old automobile I ever saw. It looked as though the Forty-Niners might have used it to travel over the old trail to California. It was pulled up in front of a171 half-way house, midway between Dorfield and Benton. I tell you I parked behind it in a jiffy and slipped into what used to be the bar, where I found some village bums and two or three transient guests eating ice cream cones and drinking ginger pop. One old cove was warming himself at the stove and loudly deploring the dry state of the country. He had on a great fur coat and looked as though he might have been traveling some distance.

“I cottoned to the old chap and began warming myself, too.”

“Come from far?” he asked with a nice, warm, kindly voice.

“The other side of Dorfield,” I answered.

“So did I, but I live over at Benton. I tell you a country doctor leads some life. One of my old patients has moved beyond Dorfield and nothing would suit him but that I should come and treat him for a bad cold—nothing but a bad cold, mind you! He ’phoned me he was coming down with pneumonia. Here I had to ride ’way over there in all this weather and when I got there, bless you, if the fellow wasn’t having a party. He did have a bad cold. I wish he’d sneeze his head off! That was last night.172 Yes, I had a good time but it was a mean way to get me to go to a party. My old car won’t stand many such trips. I’ve had it going on fifteen years as it is.

“I had a funny experience coming back from my patient’s. About six miles the other side of Dorfield a man got off the train at a wayside station—Dorset. I reckon he thought he had got to Dorfield, because he seemed rather astonished that there were so few houses in what he had evidently been told was a flourishing town. He’d got Dorfield and Dorset mixed and when the conductor hollered Dorset he thought he’d got where he was going. Said he had a little business to attend to in Dorfield and then was going on beyond, and was mighty glad when I picked him up and gave him a ride. I always give people rides along the country pikes. He wasn’t my kind of passenger though, because he had such a low forehead and a kind of wry neck. I talked along to him and he never answered a word more than just to ask me if that was all the speed I could get out of my old locomotive. I got right peeved, but I never said so.

“When we got to Dorfield he said he’d like173 me to stop on the corner of Spruce street, as he had a little errand to do. I had to get a pint of iodine and some gauze at the drug store near by, so it suited me very well. It didn’t take me a minute to make my purchases, but, by golly, that fellow was back in the car the minute I was and when we crossed the track and he saw a freight train coming he never said thank you, but jumped out of my car and ran like fun and got onto that car while it was moving, just like Douglas Fairbanks or Harold Lloyd. He was a rum customer, I can tell you.”

“Which way was the freight headed?” I asked.

“West—that six o’clock freight where the engineer plays a tune on his locomotive whistle.”

Ursula had listened to Bob with breathless interest.

“That man’s business in Dorfield was to deliver that letter to your address,” declared Bob. “The doctor in the funny old car had no more to do with it than I had myself.”

“I believe you are right,” agreed Ursula. “And now what next?”

“Next, I must let Captain Lonsdale know what I know and maybe he can put a watch on174 that freight. Gee, I hate to ask help, but I must remember the way Josie works and how the important thing with her is always to get the criminal landed, whether she does it herself or not being of no importance.”

CHAPTER XVII
JOSIE MAKES A FIND

Josie’s impatience amounted almost to a fever, as she awaited the hour for dinner with Mr. Cheatham. The day after Christmas had been a busy one for her. She felt she must write a detailed account to Ursula of her visit with the Trasks. Also Captain Charlie Lonsdale and Bob Dulaney must be communicated with and the rest of the day was taken up in unearthing everything concerning Cheatham and Miss Fitchet that a female detective could hope to learn in a day.

Aunt Mandy was intensely interested in all Josie had to tell her of her cousins at Peewee Valley and her excitement knew no bounds when she learned that the young woman upon whom she looked as her own especial boarder, since her husband had sent her to Miss Lucy Leech’s, should have had Christmas dinner with such “highupity pussons” as the Trasks.

“An’ you done knowd young Mr. Teddy Trask176 at school! Well, bless Bob, if life ain’t complexicated.”

Josie had felt it wise to account for her acquaintance with young Trask to Aunt Mandy and her mistress. He was to come for her to take her to Mr. Cheatham’s dinner party and Josie knew boarding houses and the curiosity of the boarders well enough to be sure she must account for being friends with a young man as well known in Louisville as the handsome Teddy Trask. She had cautioned Teddy to ask for her by her right name and not the assumed one.

“I’m sorry I got going with a dual personality,” she said, “but it’s done now and Miss Lucy Leech thinks I’m named O’Gorman and Mr. Cheatham thinks I am Miss Friend. It was a break on my part to be so free with aliases. I can’t forgive that kind of stupidity. Sometimes one loses out on a job just because of such carelessness.”

Josie always had a dinner dress neatly packed in her emergency kit, as she called the suitcase she kept ready to take on a trip, and now that she was to dine with Mr. Cheatham she was thankful that she would be suitably clad.

“You’s de kinder boa’der to make money177 on,” Aunt Mandy declared, when Josie told her she would not be home for dinner. “Mos’ boa’ders eats in reg’lar. Looks like dey’s scairt dey won’t git dey money’s wuth an’ even when dey gits ’vited out dey comes home fer a filler. Why, honey, I’s knowd boa’ders what’ll tu’n on de light in dey rooms when dey’s goin’ out, ’fraid dey won’ git dey rights. But Miss Lucy kin tell ’em wha ter git off, when dey gits too proudified and boa’derish. I tell yer Miss Lucy ain’t never been one ter be back’ards in comin’ for’d when boa’ders gits rampageous. She’ll rar’ up on her hin’ legs an’ tell ’em what’s what.”

“I’m sure she will,” laughed Josie, “and I’m sure the boarders deserve all they get when she gives them what’s what. I’ll try my best to be good and not deserve such things.”

“Lawsamussy, Miss! Anybody knows dat if my Peter an’ Brer Si recommends a pusson dat pusson air sho ter be fust-class. Peter wouldn’t no mo’ send a onsuitable boa’der here dan Si would fotch one. Dem two niggers air got both Miss Lucy an’ me ter reckon with an’ what dey reckons am no lef’ over victuals if dey ain’t got gumption enough ter respec’ the sanctity of178 a fust-class boa’din’ house kep’ by ’ristocrats.”

Teddy arrived on the stroke of the hour appointed. His mother and sister were waiting in the automobile, having driven in from Peewee Valley.

“Mother and I thought it wiser not to tell Anita what we suspect in Cheatham, so remember,” he whispered as he greeted Josie in the hall.

“Perhaps you are right. She might find it difficult to be polite to him,” said Josie, but in her heart she felt it a rather dangerous thing to leave a young girl in ignorance of the character of a man who was plainly paying court to her.

“Well,” she thought, “no doubt they know their own business best and she could hardly elope with him to-night. I hope by to-morrow we may know something definite.”

It was with a feeling of mingled rage and pity that Josie entered the Ellett house—rage that it should be owned by Cheatham and pity that Ursula should have had to give up such a home and go to live in what seemed like squalor in comparison. She remembered the bare, plain furnishings of Ursula’s apartment,179 made attractive only by the indefinable touch of taste that the girl always evinced. Josie looked critically at the damask hangings of the drawing room where Cheatham stood to greet his guests, at the rich oriental rugs, the old portraits of Ursula’s ancestors; the mahogany chairs and tables of antique make—every stick with a pedigree!

It was a marvel to Josie that the citizens of Louisville had not suspected this man of swindling his stepchildren. It seemed strange that they had not arisen in a body and demanded a reckoning, but when she remembered Ursula’s extreme reticence she realized that having kept her own counsel the citizens of Louisville would have been officious indeed to have thrust themselves into her affairs. No doubt Cheatham had a perfectly plausible tale to tell concerning his possession of the property and since Ursula had never attempted to correct his statements it was natural for neighbors to accept them as true.

One of the things that Josie had unearthed in the sleuthing she had done during the day was that Cheatham was endeavoring to sell the old Ellett house and negotiations were pending180 with an investment company with a view to making over the place into many small apartments.

A hitch in the title had kept the deal from going through, so a real estate agent had informed her when she questioned him concerning the property as though she herself were a possible buyer. “I wouldn’t mess in it myself,” he declared, “but I reckon he’ll slick it up somehow by letting the place to be sold for taxes and then buying it in himself.”

Mr. Cheatham’s dinner was quite perfect, and Josie could not help wondering if the servants were some that poor Ursula had trained. A butler of extreme elegance and ebony hue served the repast with the airs of a Chesterfield. Cheatham seemed singularly out of place in this home of gentle refinement. His color was so high, his moustache almost blue black, the whites of his eyes so white and the blacks so black. The make-up of a villain was his and still his manner was genial and cordial and had not Josie been hunting the arch conspirator with a clue given her by Ursula she knew in her heart her instinct would never have directed her towards Cheatham. The table seated twenty and Josie was181 thankful to be lost in the crowd. She decided to make herself as inconspicuous as possible.

During dinner Josie managed so completely to efface herself that her host forgot entirely there was any such person as a Miss Josie Friend, an old schoolmate of Teddy Trask, at his table. Josie had a way of effacing herself without calling attention to her silence. She responded just enough to avoid having persons remark upon her seeming stupidity. Colorlessness was what she aimed at and what she obtained.

After dinner the radio concert began. It was a simple matter for one so unimportant as Josie to slip from the drawing room on a tour of inspection. On arrival the guests had been shown into a front room where they had left their wraps. Josie had noted that leading from this room was a small study. She could see through the half-open door a typewriter on a table with a reading light, and against the wall a small rosewood desk—a lady’s desk and hardly appropriate for a man’s study.

“That is the desk Ursula told me of; the one that had belonged to her mother and that her182 stepfather had so cruelly refused to give to her at her mother’s death,” murmured Josie.

The girl detective slid into the study, closed the door gently and deftly fitted a small skeleton key into the lock of the rosewood desk. It responded to her touch and opened easily. There were pigeonholes filled with letters, receipts and bills. With a quick hand and keen eye Josie rapidly ran through the piles of correspondence. Suddenly a foreign stamp arrested her attention. She pulled out a slim envelope, tucked in with others, and to her delight saw that it was addressed to Miss Ursula Ellett. She slipped out the letter and quickly put the empty envelope back in the pigeonhole where she had found it.

“No time to read it now, but how I’d like to know what it says! Anyhow, I am sure Ursula has never read it, because the date on the envelope is November of this year.”

Quickly the little sleuth ran through the other papers. In the drawer she found a bulky epistle, also directed to Miss Ursula Ellett. This too had a foreign stamp and was postmarked Kimberly, the date rubbed so that Josie could not make it out. The contents of this envelope she also confiscated and in its place stuffed some old183 time tables she found on the table. Quickly she closed the desk and locked it and was back downstairs listening to the radio concert before even Teddy had missed her. She patted her pocket to reassure herself that the papers were safe and then tried to compose herself to listen to the rather thin music miraculously furnished.

Josie felt the evening would never be over, so anxious was she to read the communications purloined from the rosewood desk. She was able to whisper to Teddy that she had something of possible importance and that young man’s eyes were also shining with anticipation.

“I am not crazy about snooping around a house or desk-breaking,” Josie told him, “but he had something that did not belong to him and I am merely carrying out Uncle Sam’s laws in delivering to the rightful person her own mail. When can we go?”

“I’ll scare up Mother and tell her the weather is liable to get colder or hotter or something and maybe we can leave in a few minutes,” replied the astute Teddy.

The threat of a possible snowstorm did make Mrs. Trask decide to start for Peewee Valley rather earlier than a dinner party usually breaks184 up and at last Josie was free to read the letters to Ursula.

Poor Teddy must wait until morning to find out what was in them, as Josie was dropped at Miss Lucy Leech’s, while he dutifully drove his mother home.

CHAPTER XVIII
THE CLUE IN THE FILM

The letter was from Uncle Bob Benson to Ursula. Josie felt justified in reading it, in order that she might get all the light possible on the doings of Cheatham. It was a sad little letter, evidently written by a very sick man. The writing was shaky and dim, with many words almost illegible, but Josie managed to make them out.

Uncle Ben was deeply contrite at having left his sister and her children when no doubt they needed him most. He had just learned of his sister’s death and showed much feeling and distress. He wrote:

“But soon I may join her, dear Ursula, if one so unworthy as I can hope to join a saint in Heaven. I have not many weeks to live, but am hoping I can reach Louisville to die, if I can but muster enough strength to start on the journey. In the meantime I am instructing my lawyer to put my affairs in order and am making a will leaving what small fortune I have186 amassed to you, my dear niece. I am not including my nephews in my will, as I think it best for boys to have to hustle for a living and not have things made too easy for them. I am sure they are well provided for by the estate your father left.

“I am writing you all this although I am hoping to spend my last days under your tender and forgiving care. I am hoping also that that man who married your mother has left Louisville, now that he can no longer control that poor, sweet, misguided woman. I cannot forgive myself for having left her to his merciless power. I shall be with you in a few weeks now and, in the meantime, love me if you can and try to forgive me.”

That was all. Josie found herself weeping over the letter. Her rage knew no bounds when she thought of Cheatham’s keeping such a communication from Ursula. No doubt it was on receipt of this letter that he had sent Miss Fitchet to spy upon his stepdaughter in Dorfield.

The more bulky letter was from Toler & Smith, a firm of attorneys at Kimberly. Ben Benson was dead and Toler & Smith had been appointed administrators of his last will and testament.187 They enclosed a copy of his will, in which his whole estate, amounting to about one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, had been bequeathed to Ursula. Toler expected to arrive in Louisville during the month of January, or perhaps earlier. Cheatham deliberately kept the knowledge from Ursula and no doubt his game was to say he had either not received the mail or had forwarded it to the girl.

Josie decided that Ursula must come to Louisville immediately.

“I’ll telegraph in the morning,” said Josie. “I can’t bear to get the poor girl out on the midnight train, and in the meantime I must get some sleep, in spite of the fact that my brain is going around like a whirligig. Now let’s see. We’ve got a lot of evidence against Cheatham that he is as crooked as a snake, but we have nothing to prove he kidnaped little Philip or caused him to be kidnaped. Where is the child? All of the money from the diamond mines will mean nothing to Ursula if her baby brother isn’t found.”

The problem spun over and over in Josie’s mind, until at last she dropped asleep. It seemed to her she had only lost consciousness a moment188 when she heard a brisk knocking on her door. It was broad daylight. A glance at her watch informed her it was eight o’clock.

“Here am a letter fo’ you, honey,” Aunt Mandy was calling as she kept up a steady tapping on the door. “One er them there ’portant ’pistles wiv a blue stamp an’ a boy a-ridin’ fer dear life on it. I reckon some er yo’ folks mus’ be daid ter be in sich a hurry ter let you know ’bout it.”

Josie jumped from her bed and opened the door.

“I do hope I’m not late for breakfast, Aunt Mandy! It won’t take me a minute to get down. I don’t want Miss Lucy to be telling me what’s what.”

“Lawsamussy, honey, any time befo’ nine ’ll go in dis house,” Aunt Mandy went off grinning happily over the quarter Josie had slipped into her hand.

The special delivery letter was from Ursula and there was much in it to cause our little detective to ponder. Could it be that she was wrong and Cheatham had nothing to do with the crime of carrying off little Philip? Josie sat hunched up in bed, lost in thought. She read189 over and over Ursula’s copy of the letter found under her door. One thing sure, Ursula had better take the next train to Louisville. Sitting hunched up in bed and thinking was not getting anywhere, so Josie quickly got ready for breakfast. Teddy must be communicated with immediately, but that young man had caught an early trolley from Peewee and before Josie finished her breakfast he was ringing Miss Lucy’s doorbell and eagerly asking for Miss Josie O’Gorman.

“I must talk to you somewhere, but where?” asked Josie. “A boarding-house parlor is hardly the place for a chat, and it’s too cold and sloppy to talk while we walk.”

“How about my office?”

“All right, if it is private.”

“Well, I share it with two other fellows and there is a flapper stenographer and I must say lots of people loaf on us.”

“I tell you, let’s go to an early movie,” said Josie. “There is no place on earth so quiet and private as an early movie. How soon do they open up here?”

“One of them makes a specialty of being open all the time with a continuous performance. Let’s go there.”

190 Before acting on this plan, Ursula was wired to come to Louisville at once.

“She can’t get here until late this afternoon and in the meantime we can snoop around. Ho! for the cinema!” said Josie.

The motion picture theatre was dark and warm. The performance was beginning as the young people entered. They were the only ones on pleasure bent so early in the morning and had the place to themselves, except for two men in the center of the house who were evidently left-overs from the night before and were now peacefully sleeping.

“This is not much of a place, except that they do run a good news reel,” apologized Teddy. “They get the happenings of the world hot off the bat.”

“I dote on the Travelaughs and news reels,” said Josie. “I go to the movies a lot just to be quiet and in the dark and think. I follow the show with half my brain and think with the other half.”

“Well, what do you say to watching the news reel and then talking business through the slapstick comedy that is sure to follow?”

Josie thought that a fine plan and gave her191 attention to the screen, upon which this item was soon displayed:

“A large fire in Cincinnati on Christmas Day did much damage and injured several persons. The crowd has gathered to see the firemen search the smouldering ruins for the charred remains of a night watchman who is supposed to be under the debris.”

Josie clutched Teddy’s arm, as the picture followed.

“Look! Look at that woman on the left, dragging a little boy by the hand. I mean that woman with her head on one side, who is hurrying along the sidewalk. Oh, now they are gone! I must see them again. Teddy! Teddy! That little boy is Philip Ellett and I believe in my soul the woman is Miss Fitchet! I never laid eyes on her before but Ursula told me how she carried her head on one side and how she walked in a zigzag course. Could we possibly see that news reel again?”

“We could wait until the show begins again or perhaps we could get the manager to run it over for us,” said Teddy.

192 “That would be fine, but I fancy waiting is our only chance. I don’t really see the use in viewing it again. I am as sure the little boy was Philip as I can be of anything. Seeing it again wouldn’t help matters a bit. The caption read that it was Cincinnati on Christmas Day. That is where they have taken the boy. I’ll just light out for Cincinnati.”

“And I’ll go too,” declared Teddy.

“Not at all, my dear fellow! If you go trapesing off to Cincinnati, who is to meet Ursula when she arrives on that night train? She may need your protection and need it badly. I’ll bet you a hat that Cheatham is meeting every train that comes in. But I haven’t had time to talk to you at all about what I have discovered and now I must fly to the station and get the first train out for Cincinnati. We didn’t get much business discussed in the movies after all.”

“Well, there’s a train out in half an hour. Let’s jump in a taxi and you can go by Miss Lucy’s and get your grip and catch the train too, if you are the hustler I think you are.”

Josie agreed, and they rushed to Miss Lucy’s where, with a flying good-bye to Aunt Mandy,193 with instructions to take good care of her mail and assurances that she would return in a day and maybe sooner, Josie was quickly back in the taxi with the excited young man.

“I won’t have time to tell you all about these letters,” said Josie, “but I am going to give them over to your keeping and you hang onto them through thick and thin, until Ursula has her rights. Be sure to meet her on the train arriving at seven and take her to Miss Lucy’s. Tell Aunt Mandy to give her my room. I wish I had thought about that before. Perhaps I’ll have time to telephone from the station.”

“I’d like to take her out to my mother,” suggested Teddy.

“Sure you would, but she had better be right here in town, where we can put our hands on her. Watch out for Cheatham, though. Don’t tell anyone about the letters I purloined from his desk. He may take action if he finds out about it and have me arrested for housebreaking or something. The thing to do is to keep quiet. He won’t know the papers are gone unless he gets wind of what we are up to and goes over his pigeonholes.”

The taxi drew up at the station, giving Josie194 five minutes to spare before the Cincinnati train was called. She flew to a telephone booth and in a moment had Aunt Mandy on the wire.

“Aunt Mandy, please, if Mr. Teddy Trask brings a young lady to the house this evening, take good care of her and put her in my room. She is a great friend of mine, also of Mr. Trask’s, and she is in deep distress, so I am sure you will be kind to her.”

“Lawd love you, sho I will! I reckon she done los’ some er her foks. Anyhow, I’m gonter take de bes’ care er any frien’ er yourn.”

“Thank you! Thank you!” and Josie hung up the receiver.

As she darted from the booth she ran straight into Mr. Cheatham. He looked slightly puzzled as she bowed to him. Evidently he had forgotten that such a person existed. He took off his hat and gave a perfunctory nod. His brow was furrowed and he looked worried. Suddenly he saw Teddy and evidently the sight of the young man refreshed his memory as to who Josie was.

“Ah! seeing your friend off?” he asked endeavoring to be cordial.

“Yes. Are you going on a trip?”

“Well, er—, just a little business trip to195 Cincinnati. I will be gone only a short while. Please tell your sister, if you should happen to mention the fact that you saw me starting off, that I expect to be back in plenty of time to keep our engagement for to-morrow evening.”

“Certainly!” said Teddy, but Josie noticed that his jaw shot out in a very pugnacious angle as he answered.

“Good-bye, Josie!” and Teddy held her hand in a firm grip. “I’ll tell the world you are some sport.”

“Good-bye, Teddy! It is mighty nice to have seen you and I hope we shall meet again soon. Thank you for all your kindness.” Her tone was that of a conventional young lady saying farewell to an old schoolmate she had happened to run across. Teddy realized she was putting on the social graces for the benefit of Mr. Cheatham, who was watching the parting with some show of interest.

Josie was almost sorry she had acted so well when, after the train pulled out, Cheatham sank in the seat by her and with an evident effort began to try to make himself agreeable. Of course she realized fully it was because he felt it incumbent upon him to pay some attention to a young196 person, no matter how unattractive in his eyes, who was evidently a close friend of the brother of Anita Trask.

“I’ll meet him halfway,” was her resolve, and forthwith she began a line of so-called flapper talk that completely overwhelmed the man.

CHAPTER XIX
PHILIP IS FOUND

Had Cheatham harbored the slightest suspicion against Teddy Trask’s friend, her conversation on the journey from Louisville to Cincinnati would have completely dispelled it. Cheatham was an intelligent villain, with some culture, and Josie’s deliberately silly patter bored him intensely. He stood it for about an hour and then made a plea of having to see a business acquaintance in the smoker.

“Well, I’ll see you again,” said Josie, “good-bye! Where are you going to stop in Cincinnati? I may go out to Walnut Hills with some friends or I’d just love to see you sometime. Where’d you say you were stopping? Not that I’d have any time for you. My friends are awfully smart. Money to burn. Cars and just everything. I’ll be dated up for every minute. Only going to be here one night anyhow. Where’d you say?”

“Hotel Haddon!”

198 “Gee! I never even heard of it. Is it slummy?”

“Not at all! Very decent. An old downtown hotel!” Mr. Cheatham beat a hasty retreat.

Josie dropped her flapperish expression as soon as Cheatham passed from her coach and then she leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes with a sigh of relief. She wanted to think and to think fast. The porter passed down the aisle. Why not find out from him just where the Hotel Haddon was? Giving an adroit twist to the shade at the window, she pulled it out of place, which gave her an excuse to call on the porter for his services.

“Awfully sorry,” she said, slipping some silver in his hand after he had adjusted the shade. “Please tell me, do you know a Hotel Haddon in Cincinnati?”

“Yes, miss! Down-town place—uster be a fambly hotel but now it’s kinder taken over by theatre people. Travelin’ men use it some. I wouldn’t ’vise it for a lone young lady.”

Josie thanked him and listened attentively to the list of hotels he did advise for one in her situation.

199 “Now, there’s a real ladylike hotel right acrost the street from the Haddon if you’ve a mind to be down-town. It’s called the Alpha,” said the friendly porter.

When the train pulled in at Cincinnati Josie managed to make herself invisible behind the curtains of the ladies’ dressing room. She hardly expected Cheatham to look her up, but there was a chance of his doing it, and she wanted him to forget she was in Cincinnati if possible. When the train was about emptied, she darted out, seized a belated red cap and had him put her safely into a taxi.

“Hotel Alpha,” she called, and at that moment had the satisfaction of seeing Cheatham enter a bus bearing the inscription Hotel Haddon. Evidently he had told the truth about his stopping place, because he had no suspicion of her wanting to know for any reason but idle curiosity.

Now came for Josie a period of watchful waiting. Fortunately the parlors of the Alpha Hotel were situated on the mezzanine floor and overlooked the street. Having registered and engaged a room, Josie ensconced herself in an easy chair behind a sash curtain that gave her200 a full view of the street and the Hotel Haddon which was directly across the way.

She was excited. There was no use in denying it. She felt her heart beats distinctly and her hands trembled a bit.

“Here, girl! Pull yourself together!” she commanded. “This is no time to behave in a womanish way, even if you are stopping at a ladylike hotel.”

She eagerly scanned the windows of the Haddon, beginning at the second floor and working systematically to the top. The building was only four stories high. The windows were blank and empty and gave away no secrets. Once she saw a man with a black moustache look out of one on the third floor, but he so quickly turned that Josie could not be sure of his identity. She marked the window, however—third floor at the extreme right.

So busy was she gazing at that window she almost missed seeing Cheatham emerge from the hotel accompanied by a woman, rather handsome, with auburn hair, carrying her head decidedly on one side. They were talking animatedly and walking rapidly. Josie also marked the gait of the woman which took a zigzag course—so201 much so that at times she bumped into the man by her side.

Again she looked up to the window on the third floor. It was blank but on the second floor directly below she was sure she could distinguish a wistful little face pressed close to the pane.

Josie paused not a moment. She did not wait for the elevator, but darted down the steps from the mezzanine and was across the street and in the Hotel Haddon before Cheatham and Miss Fitchet had even turned the corner. The Hotel Haddon was rather a haphazard place and, there being no clerk at the desk at the time, it was not necessary for her to explain her business. The elevator landed Josie at the second floor and, with an air of being a guest, she walked to the extreme end of the hall and turned the knob of the door of Number 220. She had her skeleton key in case it was necessary to use it, but was much relieved when the door opened. Evidently the kidnapers were so sure of themselves they had not thought of locking the child in the room.

“Hello, Philip!” Josie said quietly. “I’ve come to take you home, dear.”

202 Her tone was so composed that Philip did not cry out at all, but his face was so bright with happiness that Josie almost gave herself up to the tears that were well nigh choking her.

“Get your coat and hat and let’s hurry,” she said. “Don’t talk any now. We can talk later.”

It was quite as easy to get out of the hotel with the boy as it had been to get in without him. She used the stairs this time, however. It was a matter of five minutes for Josie to release the room she had engaged at the ladylike hotel, jump in a taxi with Philip and make for the station. There was a train just ready to pull out, which she caught by the greatest good luck. It was a local, but its destination was Louisville. Josie would have taken it no matter what its destination, as she was sure it was a wise plan to leave Cheatham and Fitchet at any cost, and she hoped they would do some worrying.

Once they were settled in the train the little boy poured forth his soul to his liberator.

“I wasn’t doin’ nothin’ but jes’ sleepin’ when all of a sudden somebody jes’ picked me up an’ carried me off. I kinder thought it was Sister at first an’ I didn’t wake up all the way. I jes’ went on dreamin’, kinder half awake, but203 bye’m’bye I woke up ’cause somehow it didn’t smell like Sister but like powder. I was so scairt by that time I didn’t know what to do, so I kicked an’ hollered an’ clawed at that ol’ woman till she spanked me good.

“We were in a automobile an’ I don’t know where we was goin’ or where we’ve been but she made me put on my clothes an’ my overcoat, that she had brung along with me, an’ she tol’ me if I didn’t hush up cryin’ she’d tell Santa Claus I was a bad boy an’ he wouldn’t bring me a thing an’ I ’membered nex’ day was Christmus an’ I tried to stop bawlin’ but I missed Sister an’ Ben so bad I didn’t care after a while whether ol’ Santy brought me anything or not. I didn’t see how he was gonter know I wasn’t home with Sister. At last we went to that hotel where there weren’t any chimbleys an she tol’ me if I acted ugly she’d give me to the ash man, but if I ’haved she’d take me to the movies. There was a big fire here when we first came an’ I saw the men digging for dead folks but Aunty wouldn’t let me stop.”

“Oh, so she made you call her Aunty, did she?” asked Josie.

“Yes, but I don’t believe she’s any mo’ kin204 to me than the ash man. She ain’t never lef me ’til jes’ befo’ you came for me, an’ then somebody called her up on the ’phone an’ she jes’ powdered herself up an’ put on her hat an’ tol’ me if I didn’t stay right still until she got back a ol’ witch would git me. She said she was waitin’ out in the hall for me, but I didn’t believe her a bit ’cause Sister already tol’ me there wasn’t any witches ’cept in books an’ Aunty didn’t have any books.

“The man that called her up on the ’phone was waitin’ in the hall for her but I never saw him. He tol’ her she’d better lock me up in the room, but she said she was afraid of fire an’ I wouldn’t be no good to them any more if I got burnt up. I don’t see what good I am to them now, but Aunty made out she loved me mor’n Sister an’ Ben did, an’ she was jes a borrowin’ me for a while an’ if I ’haved like a gemman maybe sometime I could go see Sister. That’s the reason I didn’t holler, an’ was a gonter stay quiet in the room if you hadn’t come for me. She said she was gonter bring me back some all-day suckers an’ all kinds of things ’cause Santa Claus didn’t find me after all. An’ I pretty near knew he wouldn’t.”

205 “I am pretty sure Santa Claus left your things at your home,” said Josie softly. “I am also pretty sure you are going to see Sister and Ben in a few hours. Sister has been very sad over your going away and Ben has been miserable.”

“Now, didn’t I say so? But ol’ Aunty kep’ on tellin’ me Sister was glad to get rid of me an’ had asked her to take me off. I never did b’lieve her, ’cause I’d already caught her lyin’ ’bout Santa Claus. I sure have missed all of you, The Lady in the Chair an’ Mrs. Danny an’ Uncle Peter an’ Aunt Peter. I reckon I’m gonter go to sleep. I ain’t slep’ much since Aunty grabbed me up an’ carried me off. I been thinkin’ so much an’ then when I’d git mos’ asleep Aunty would pipe up an’ snore to beat the band. I ain’t been away from home but ’bout three nights but it seems to me as if I been born away from home an’ been a livin’ with ol’ Aunty all my life.”

“Tell me, Philip, before you go to sleep, was there anybody else with you and Aunty—a man?”

“One time there was. I think he was Aunty’s brother, only he didn’t make out he was my206 uncle. I heard them talkin’ an’ they writ a letter together. That was in the hotel after we saw the fire a burnin’. She called him Bill an’ she told him not to let ol’ C. lay eyes on him an’ he said he had some sense left. An’ then he went off with the letter an’ I ain’t never seen him since an’ I ain’t sorry neither, cause he was a turrible lookin’ man an’ I don’t see what ol’ C. would want to lay eyes on him for.”

Philip then put his head in Josie’s lap and slept peacefully until the porter gave warning that Louisville was the next stop.

CHAPTER XX
MISS FITCHET IS SURPRISED

If after Josie left the Hotel Haddon with little Philip she had again ensconced herself in the ladies’ parlor of the Alpha, at the window overlooking the street, instead of hurrying off as she did to the station, she would have seen an interesting drama enacted. About fifteen minutes after Cheatham and his companion left the hotel a rough-looking man in a tweed suit and battered derby came slinking along the street. He stopped in front of the hotel and looked furtively around and then, evidently seeing nothing disconcerting, he darted within. He, too, avoided the desk and also saved the elevator boy the trouble of taking him upstairs. He almost ran down the hall and turned the knob of Number 220. The door opened to him as it had to Josie.

“Humph! Where’s that blasted kid?” he muttered. “Hi! You kid, where yuh hiding? You better come on out from under the bed.208 I ain’t one to be easy on bad boys.” His tone was rough and commanding. Receiving no answer, he jerked open the closet door and looked under the bed. He even pulled out the drawers of the bureau, poked behind the radiator, and then turned up the mattress, as though he expected someone to be hid under it.

“She sure said 220,” he muttered, and drew from his pocket a note written on Hotel Haddon paper. He read:

“Dear Bill: Old C. will be here at three. I will take him out walking and will leave the door unlocked. Get the brat and make for L. on the night boat. Sis.”

“Something’s gone wrong,” he growled, “but she needn’t think she can double-cross me. She took the kid with her more’n likely and left me in a hole.” The man’s expression was brutal and lowering. Without stopping to straighten the room, which he had succeeded in making look as though a cyclone had struck it, he walked down the stairs and out of the hotel. He then lounged across the street and, taking his stand near the Hotel Alpha, he awaited the return of Cheatham and Miss Fitchet.

209 They were gone about an hour and then they came, walking very leisurely, still talking animatedly but not so amicably as when they had started on their ramble.

“I told you all the time Cincinnati was too close to Louisville and Atlanta would be the better place,” Cheatham was saying.

“Well, Cincinnati suited me better,” she said with her panther-like grin. “I reckon I’ve had all the trouble of this thing and I might be considered a little.”

“So you have, but I have financed it,” he said.

“Oh, yes, financed it with a room in a cheap hotel and not even taxi fare if you could help it!”

“Oh, well, I haven’t got so much, and you know it. I have managed to keep Ursula Ellett from having the slightest inkling of Ben Benson’s having left her a fortune. I wanted to be sure the boy was well hidden and then I would get to work with letters telling her of her fortune, following by demands for a large sum if the child was safely returned. Ursula is such a softy and so close-mouthed she would be easy to do out of this fortune, just as she has been210 easy to persuade that her father’s fortune belonged to me. If she had had the gumption to go to a good lawyer, I should have had to pursue other tactics. Well, I’ll bid you good-bye, my dear. I’d like to take you to dinner but the boy knows me too well for me to let him see me. It is a blessing he never saw you before.”

“Good-bye then,” she smirked, “but it would be just as well to give me a little cash. I am about broke and considering you expect to make such large sums out of this business you might afford a little more sumptuous quarters for your tool.”

He reluctantly separated several large bills from a roll.

“Not half enough,” she said. “Keep it up! You needn’t think I’ll do your dirty work for nothing.”

He sullenly peeled off two more bills and put the roll back in his pocket.

“Well, keep me informed how things are with you. It won’t be long before I can make my haul.”

“Your haul, is it? I was thinking it would be our haul.”

“Oh, yes! Certainly! I have a man to see211 on business while I am in Cincinnati and then I must catch the night train for Louisville. I’ll see you again before I go. My room is 320—directly over yours. You can telephone me there!”

The man in the tweed suit waited until Cheatham was out of sight and then he darted across the street and again mounted the stairs to Room 220. He found the woman standing in the middle of the floor gazing with disgust on the dismantled state of her room. One bureau drawer had been pulled entirely out and the contents strewn over the floor. The open closet door disclosed clothing jerked from the hooks and the mattress was turned over, with bed clothes thrown around anywhere and everywhere.

“Well, Bill,” she said sharply, “you managed to get things in a nice mess! Where’s the brat? You were to take him and keep him and not come back until you heard from me. I don’t see that you need have turned up my things in this way. Of course you were hunting money, but you might have known I wouldn’t have left it around where you could get hold of it.”

“Money, is it? You—you—you two-faced——!”212 The man was so angry he could hardly speak. “You think you can double-cross me, do you, and get by with it? Not on your life!”

The woman stared at him in astonishment. She looked at him fixedly and her grin turned to a snarl.

“Bill, you are crazy. I don’t know what you are talking about. You stop your carrying on and tell me where that boy is.”

“You tell me! When I got here he was gone and I messed up the room hunting for him, thinking he was hiding.”

“Gone!” Miss Fitchet’s tone was one of such genuine dismay that the brother was forced to recognize her sincerity.

“Yes, gone!”

“Well then you have got to find him. I don’t trust you, Bill. You have lied to me before now.”

“Trust me or not—the kid’s gone and I reckon we’d best get busy finding him. I’d have started before now, but I thought you were playing me a trick.”

“He’s somewhere here in the hotel, I am sure. He’s always trying to make friends and I guess as soon as I had my back turned he was213 out of the room. I’ll settle things when I do find him.”

Inquiry at the desk for her “nephew” disclosed nothing. The clerk had been off duty. The elevator boy had seen no child coming or going. The chambermaid had no knowledge of the boy. The hotel was ransacked from basement to roof.

“I fancy you’d better get in touch with the police,” suggested the clerk. As that was the last thing Fitchet wished to do, she became angry at mention of the officers of the law and began to berate the management of the Hotel Haddon for their carelessness.

“Come, lady, we don’t run a nursery,” laughed the clerk. “You’d have been better off at the Alpha if you’d wanted a day nurse for the boy. We don’t make a specialty of kids.”

“I wonder if old Cheatham himself could have had the boy spirited away while I was off,” Miss Fitchet suggested to her brother. “He’s capable of it.”

“Of course! That’s exactly the ticket. I’ll wring his neck for him. He ain’t got any honor,” said Bill.

“We’ll take the night train for Louisville and214 give him what’s what. I reckon he’ll be expecting me to come to him with a tale of Philip’s being stolen and he’ll have some big lie ready. I’ll fool him. I won’t tell him the boy’s gone.”

While Fitchet was berating Cheatham to her brother, a messenger came with a letter for her. It was from her employer and confederate telling her he was taking the afternoon express for Louisville and would not see her again but that he would be back in Cincinnati in a few days.

“The villain!” she cried. “Come on, Bill, we’ll catch the express!” Literally throwing her clothes into a valise, and without stopping to pay the jocular clerk, she and the disreputable brother jumped into a taxi and sped to the station. They barely made the train, just as it was pulling out.

CHAPTER XXI
JOSIE O’GORMAN’S TRIUMPH

Obedient to Josie’s telegram, Ursula took the first train from Dorfield for Louisville. The Conants wanted her to leave Ben in their care, but she could not bear to be parted from him and he felt that he must take care of his sister and must be with her all the time.

“Josie wouldn’t have sent for me unless she felt sure it was necessary, and what is important to me is important to Ben,” she declared as she thanked her friends.

“Josie will meet us, I am sure,” she said to Ben as they neared their destination.

At a junction not far from Louisville, the coach from Dorfield was joined to the Cincinnati express. At the same junction the accommodation train that Josie and little Philip had boarded so hurriedly had been tied up for reasons best known to the train dispatchers and after a long, long wait, the passengers were transferred to the express.

216 “Plenty of room in the forward coach, miss,” the brakeman said to Josie, and the astute female detective, all unconscious of what waited her in the forward coach, walked innocently in, holding her charge by the hand, and there sat Ursula and Ben.

A love feast followed, Ursula smiling happily as she hugged little Philip to her bosom. It was such a wonderful denouement to the kidnaping that Josie was sorry to have to confess that she had not planned it.

“I never dreamed this was the Dorfield train,” she said. “Philip and I were dumped at this junction and all I knew was that we were on our way to Louisville and would get there sometime.”

She had so much to tell Ursula, and Ursula had so much to tell her, and Philip had so much to say about his wanderings, that the station at Louisville was reached all too soon.

Teddy was there waiting for them, his eyes aglow with a new light as Ursula stepped from the train.

At the same time, from the forward coach, two men and a woman alighted on the platform. They were Cheatham, Miss Fitchet and her217 brother. All of them were angry. Cheatham was trying to pacify Miss Fitchet, who was violently accusing him of having abducted little Philip. He in his turn was eying Bill with disfavor, feeling sure that he was in some way responsible for the disappearance of the boy. Never having heard of Miss Fitchet’s having a brother until they boarded the moving train at Cincinnati and burst in upon him with violent invective and vituperation, it was but natural for him to be suspicious of the two. Still it behooved him to endeavor to calm the woman, as she already knew too much about his underhand operations for it to be safe for him to make an enemy of her.

All unconscious of the happy group at the far end of the platform, the three persons united by villainy and divided by distrust approached. Bill was the first to see Philip.

“Yonder’s the brat, you hound!” he cried out in a rage. “So you had him on the train with you all the time! But we’ve trapped you.”

Miss Fitchet was quick to see that Ursula had hold of her little brother’s hand and at the same moment Mr. Cheatham realized that standing by her were Teddy Trask, Ben and, strange218 to say, the silly little flapper person who had talked to him on the way up to Cincinnati only that morning.

Looking down the long platform, Ursula saw the sinister trio. Her instinct was to clasp her little brother to her heart and run, but a fine something that was in the girl made her stand up and, with head erect and eyes flashing, face the persons who had caused her as bitter hours as could be spent by the innocent.

“That man with Mr. Cheatham and Miss Fitchet is the one who brought the note to me; I recognize the man I saw coming up the street,” she whispered to Josie.

“He’s the one she calls Bill,” said Philip. “He wrote the note, ’cause I saw him doin’ it. You ain’t gonter let them take me away again, are you, Sister?”

Teddy picked the boy up and put him on his shoulder.

“Now you are bigger than anybody,” he said, “and you need never be afraid any more.”

Josie was a generous antagonist and she could not help feeling sorry for Cheatham. He looked like a whipped hound as he approached them, cringing pitiably. He must make an effort219 and try to appear at his ease.

He whispered to Miss Fitchet: “Go on! Take your brother and pretend we are not together.”

“I’ll do no such thing,” she answered, showing her teeth like a snarling tiger. “The jig’s up and you are to take the blame, so watch your step.”

Cheatham tried to think quickly. Should he pass Ursula without recognition? What should he do? He could not turn tail and run, as he would have liked to do. If it were not for the hateful Fitchet and her rowdy brother he might have faced the situation. How could he explain his conduct to Teddy Trask? How could his stepdaughter have found her brother and got him away from their clutches? What had that colorless Miss Friend to do with it all? Why had she gone to Cincinnati by one train and returned to Louisville by the next? What proof would they have that he had been implicated in the kidnaping?

Such thoughts brought him up to where Ursula stood, with her two good friends and her brothers. Evidently she would leave it to him whether or not speech was to pass between them.220 She moved not a muscle, but stood with erect head and flashing eyes, as if about to pass judgment on a criminal.

Josie broke the spell by saying: “Ah, Mr. Cheatham, so we came back on the same train! If I had only known! Wasn’t it wonderful, too, that I met my dear friend Ursula Ellett on the train? Such a sweet girl! It was so fortunate that quite by chance I ran across her little brother at the Hotel Haddon.

“You see, I went to the Alpha, directly across the street. When you told me you were going to the Haddon I didn’t like to go there, too, because you might have thought I was pursuing you, and far be it from me to give any man that impression, but since you had assured me the neighborhood was respectable, I just stopped at the Alpha.

“I saw little Philip peeping out of the second-story window, and as I knew his sister was very uneasy about him, I gave up my date in Cincinnati and just brought him along with me. You see, Miss Ellett and I are very dear friends. In fact, we are partners in a little business in Dorfield. She runs the tea room and I do the washing and dabble a bit in detective work.”

221 All of this chatter Josie got off without drawing breath, and with the mincing manners of a very silly young person. Teddy found himself laughing and Ursula could not help giggling, in spite of the deep emotion that was mastering her.

Josie continued: “This is Miss Fitchet, I take it, and her brother, known as Bill? This gentleman, I understand, was in Dorfield only last night, where he went to deliver a letter to Miss Ellett. He got off the train at Dorset instead of Dorfield and there got a lift from a country doctor who was riding in an old-fashioned car of the vintage of 1912. He left the doctor without saying ‘thank you’ and boarded a freight train going west. The letter he delivered to Miss Ellett is very incriminating.”

At these words the man called Bill turned and began to run, but his course took him directly into the arms of a big policeman, who held him tightly until he could give an account of himself.

“I reckon you’d better hold on to him, Captain, for a while,” said Josie. “He might be needed.”

At the mention of a letter having been sent222 to Ursula, Mr. Cheatham looked very much mystified. He turned on Miss Fitchet.

“What does this mean?”

“I reckon it means there is double-crossing going on. What do you want to do about these people, Ursula?” asked Josie.

“Oh, let them all go,” said the girl. “I have my baby back and that is all that makes any difference.”

“Yes, that is all that makes much difference,” said Teddy Trask, “but I think you’d better not let them get away until you have a business understanding with your stepfather. If you will employ me as your attorney, I’ll attend to that.”

“I do, I do!” With Ursula’s response, Teddy Trask swung into action.

“All right then. Mr. Cheatham, I shall ask you to be in my office to-morrow morning at nine o’clock. You had best not attempt to get out of this or I shall have to advise Uncle Sam concerning certain tampering with mails. Letters addressed to Miss Ursula Ellett from her Uncle Ben Benson, and from an attorney in Kimberly, have been held by you and unlawfully opened.”

“I—I—could not forward mail to my stepdaughter223 when I did not know her address,” stammered Cheatham.

“Your confederate, Miss Fitchet, saw Miss Ellett in Dorfield in November. The police of that town have a record of her having been in Dorfield at that time, immediately after Mr. Benson wrote to Ursula. His letter is now in my possession, so you need not worry to look it up. I also hold the will of the late Mr. Benson and will expect to see the representative from the firm of Toler & Smith, who will be in Louisville shortly, so I understand.

“I shall ask you in the morning to account in full for the estate of the late Philip Ellett. What belongs to the children you have defrauded shall be returned to them unless you are willing to spend some twenty years behind the bars.

“As for you,” and Teddy Trask turned on Miss Fitchet, who had been rather enjoying the ragging her employer was undergoing, “you had best be very quiet and behave very well. You have been guilty of a great crime and it rests with Miss Ellett whether or not you shall be punished for it. The police in Louisville have you under surveillance, so you need not hope to escape if it is desirable to keep you.”

224 “Anything more?” asked Cheatham sullenly.

“Yes, don’t trust silly flappers with the name of the hotel where you expect to stop,” said Josie, in her natural voice and manner, which were in startling contrast to the one which she had hitherto used in addressing Cheatham.

Turning to the abashed nurse, Josie said: “As for you, Miss Fitchet, when you are running off with poor little boys and almost breaking their sisters’ hearts, don’t pass by fires where the camera man is no doubt on his job. News reels are quickly developed and on the screen. If I had not seen you on the screen, dragging poor little Philip along the sidewalk near where the big fire was on Christmas morning in Cincinnati, I might have taken much longer to trace you. I say ‘thank goodness for the movies.’ Also please let me add that the world would have more respect for all of you if you could realize that there should be honor among thieves.”