“I say!” he said, quaveringly. “Is Mr. Grimes——”
“Get out of here, you old ruffian!” cried Fenwick Grimes, flying into a sudden passion. “Of course, you’d got to come around to-day!”
“I only wanted to say, Mr. Grimes——”
“Out of my sight!” roared Grimes. “Here, Leggett!” to his clerk; “give Jones a dollar and let him go. I can’t see him now.”
“Jones, sir?” queried the clerk, seemingly somewhat staggered, and looking from his employer to the old scarecrow in the doorway.
“Yes, sir!” snarled Mr. Grimes. “I said Jones, sir—Jones, Jones, Jones! Do you understand plain English, Mr. Leggett? Take that dollar on the desk and give it into the hands of Jones there at the door. And then oblige me by kicking him down the steps if he doesn’t move fast enough.”
Leggett moved rapidly himself after this. He seemed to catch his employer’s real meaning, and he grabbed the dollar and chased the beggar out into the hall. Grimes, meanwhile, held Helen back a bit. But he had nothing of any consequence to say.
Finally she bade him good-morning and went out of the office. She had not given him Uncle Starkweather’s letter. Somehow, she thought it best not to do so. If she had been doubtful of the sincerity of her uncle when she broached the subject nearest her heart, she had been much more suspicious of Fenwick Grimes.
She walked composedly enough out of the building; but it was hard work to keep back the tears. It did seem such a great task for a mere girl to attempt! And nobody would help her. She had nobody in whom to confide—nobody with whom she might discuss the mystery.
And when she told herself this her mind naturally flashed to the only real friend she had made in New York—Sadie Goronsky. Helen had looked up a map of the city the evening before in her uncle’s library, and she had marked the streets intervening between this place where she had interviewed her father’s old partner, and Madison Street on the East Side.