CHAPTER IV
THE CRIMSON PATCH
"I don't like it at all, somehow, and yet I can't exactly tell you why." Captain Meade shuffled the books and magazines on the sitting-room table, rearranging them precisely and absent-mindedly. On his forehead was an anxious frown.
"But, Daddy," cried Patricia, "what possible objection can there be to my being friends with that lovely girl? She is so lonely and so sad! I just love her already. Think what she has suffered—and is still suffering! It seems as if it would be simply cruel not to be friends with her now, after what she has told me."
"But the very things you've told me about her and your conversations with her make me feel there's something strange about the whole affair. She's not as candid and open in manner as I should like. She seems to be hiding something all the time. And her relationship to that Madame Vanderpoel appears singular. She says the woman is her aunt, by marriage, yet she doesn't seem to care to call her so. I am deeply sorry for the girl, if her story is true, as it probably is, but I feel as if there is much that she is concealing. And I frankly confess that I do not like this Madame Vanderpoel. Why should she have told you that the girl was ill with a severe headache, and then you go in and find her in the best of health, apparently? Things don't hang together, somehow."
"Well, what am I going to do?" demanded Patricia, almost in tears. "Madame Vanderpoel has invited me to go with them on a trip to Creston Beach to-morrow and spend the day with them there. I suppose she wants to do something in return for my looking after Virginie to-day. She spoke to me about it as we passed her table to-night. You had gone on ahead to speak to Mrs. Quale. I told her I'd ask you about it. Are you going to say I mustn't go?"
The captain tugged at the end of his short mustache and strode up and down the room perplexedly. At length he spoke. "You simply must trust me in this matter, honey, and remember that I'm not an old tyrant, but just a cautious Daddy, striving to do what is best for us all. You will have an engagement with Mrs. Quale to-morrow. Fortunately she suggested to me this evening that perhaps you would care to spend the morning with her and help her select some wall-papers for her house that is being rebuilt and decorated. And let me offer just this wee bit of advice. See as much as you want of this little Virginie when you can be with her alone. She is a poor, forlorn child who is suffering greatly—of that I feel certain. And I believe there is no harm in her. But avoid, if you can, any engagement or invitation which includes the older woman."
"Father, what do you suspect her of? What are your suspicions about her?"
"I suspect her of nothing. I do not care for her on general principles. Sometimes we have only instinct to trust, and mine tells me, just now, simply to be careful. That's all. Now call her up on the 'phone and say you will not be able to accompany them, and thank her, of course, for so kindly thinking of you."
Patricia did as she was bid, and was answered by Virginie, who said Madame Vanderpoel was not there. "I'm so sorry that I'll not be able to go, but Father had made another engagement for me," Patricia assured her, and there was a murmured reply over the instrument that the captain could not catch. But when Patricia hung up the receiver, her face was a study in perplexity.
"What do you think she said, Daddy? 'I am not sorry. I enjoy seeing you more by ourselves.' That was all, but isn't it singular? I don't believe she cares for that aunt of hers. And yet, I can't understand why. Madame Vanderpoel seems lovely, to me, and she appears to be so fond of Virginie. I'll take the hint, however. And it fits in very nicely with what you advised me to do, too. Oh, by the way, Daddy, I nearly forgot to tell you what happened this afternoon. And if you don't think that Peter Stoger is spying, after you hear it, I give up." And she described to him the strange incident in the hall.