He arrived at the apartment house, and was about to enter the lift when the boy stopped him.
“The madam’s gone,” he said, with a grin.
“Gone? Moved away?”
“Yes, sir—moved away.” He chuckled. “She certainly did move away. She wuz moved away. Seems she’d borrowed some money on that furniture of hers, and couldn’t pay it. One day the people came and took it away. Ah thought Ah’d never get over laughin’. There she stood, watching it go; and she didn’t have a stick left in the place!”
“Do you know where she went?” asked Hardy.
“No, sir, Ah do not. She didn’t invite me to call,” said the boy.
Hardy went away, heavy-hearted. For many, many nights she came to haunt him—that poor, friendless foreign woman, so wonderfully kind, so wise and so sad. He blamed himself bitterly for losing track of her. She hadn’t investigated his morals, she hadn’t blamed, she hadn’t judged—she had simply helped. His scruples now appeared petty and cruel. He thought that he would give anything he had if he could only see her again, in her beruffled white wrapper, sitting before the samovar and talking.
He remembered her devotion to her husband. What if she had taken a wrong way, in order to live? Who was he, whom she had so greatly benefited, to despise her?
VI
Hardy owed many of his special articles to a detective friend of his named Clendenning—a big, magnificent creature with a princely air and a marvelous wardrobe. When there was something interesting to be “pulled off,” Clendenning used to “tip off” Hardy; and when it was possible, the detective would take his friend along, to witness his exploits.